What a week!

After a good amount of time without posting we are all caught up and ready to share. Not to mention we just returned from an amazing a 6 national park, and 1 national monument trip! So much to share, but for right now here's a sneak peek.

Yellowstone National Park, Spring 2012

If there is one place we have been that is truly wild, it is Yellowstone National Park, especially in spring. May in Yellowstone is not the spring season that we all know and love; it's as snowy and turbulent as February in most other places. However, we were lucky and went on an early thaw weekend. Even still most of the park was still snow covered and some of it inaccessible (snow or no snow Yellowstone strictly follows its road access schedules). The trade off to more snow and less accessibility is less people; consequently food is limited in the park so think ahead about meals.

The first thing I would like to address is that for some reason many people foreign and American alike, tend to have the impression animals in national parks are tame. They are not friendly, don't try to pet them, pose with them at close range, nor try to put your children on them. It's not the smartest thing to do. I say this because in Yellowstone I saw a great many people approach or try to touch the animals; the result was an unexpected charging. At Yellowstone River a pleasant tourist tried to pet an American Bison (Bison bison), had to run, and asked me if they were aggressive. He acted very surprised when I told him yes, they are wild, and they will attack you if you get too close.

If you have ever seen a Bison up close you know they are very large, and they are not shy around humans. In Yellowstone you can see them using roads for walkways, using exhibit/ hotel yards for prime grazing fields, and picnic benches for scratching posts. There are also videos of Bison charging cars for being too close on the busy summer roadways of Yellowstone. They are amazing animals and Yellowstone is full with them, among other great beasts.

We were extremely lucky because we got to observe 4 grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) during our two short park days. The first and second Grizzly we saw were digging furiously in the ground. We later learned that grizzly's dig to search to grubs to eat. The other two were just traveling, or "trundling" as I like to call it, through forested areas. As a side note, don't ever just trust when you're boyfriend say's "come here" in a place like Yellowstone. You end up in a field 100 yards from a Grizzly and while they are gorgeous your'e hair will be on end for two days.

The animals are mesmerizing, but make sure you get a good look at the geological formations as well. They are breathtaking in themselves.

Above is the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and below part of the Mammoth Hot Spring terraces

Fauna:

Gray Wolf

Grizzly Bear

Black Bear

Coyote

Mule Deer

Elk

Least Chipmunk

Uinta Chipmunk

Rock Squirrel

Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrel

Bison

Pronghorn Antelope

Red Fox

Beaver

Mountain Cottontail

White-tailed Jackrabbit

American Red Squirrel

              -Reactions-

•       Fauna Interest 10/10
• Geological Interest 9.5/10
•        Flora Interest  6.0/10

Our first fourteener, Long's Peak 14,259'

Hiking and Climbing the fourteeners(mountains above 14,000ft) in Colorado is something that we started late in the season this year. On August 18, 2012 we decided to climb Long's peak, while Long's gets a lot of visitors daily in summer it  isn't your run-of-the-mill hike. We choose to take the Keyhole route since it is arguably most popular route to take by beginning climbers. Due to the supposedly 15 mile round trip length of this journey, we started our hike at around 4 am in the utter darkness. To give you an idea of just how dark it was the below picture was what we could see with our flashlight.

 The sun began to rise about 6:15 and was probably one of the best sunrises I've seen in my life. We had just broken tree line so we were able to sit for a second and get a unobstructed view.

Shortly after we arrived at the first trail break, which gives a good overlook to Peacock pool. The view also gives onlookers an idea of what "The Diamond" route encompasses. "The Diamond" is a true climber's route that includes about a thousand foot, vertical face. Needless to say, I won't be attempting it any time this year.

The next step in the hike is a tedious one, a 1.7 mile gradually switchback trail leading to the Boulder field. Boulder field leads to the "Keyhole" that this route gets it's name from. One thing I learned about naming trends out west is most of the time a section of land has the most literal nickname possible. Unless it starts with a religious reference such as Devil's, Satan's, and Angel's those just tell you something either high, deep, dangerous, or beautiful, and those are thrown around a lot in parks. Anyway, this Boulder field is literally a large ascending elevation field of progressively bigger boulders, leading up to a seemingly cut out square in the ridge line you must climb over to get to the next "trail" installment. It wasn't my favorite.

Once you make it over the Keyhole things start to look up, as in the view is astonishing. We were under the impression that we had made it half way at this point and the the narrows were in fact on the other side of this Keyhole. Which was... wrong, we were only around a third of the way. Though we wouldn't have cared because climbing up and down the rocks was so exhilarating, and the scenery was enough to brighten up anyone's day. After some hobbling to and through finding the bulls-eye marked trail we began to approach the trough, where the trail started to get harder. The trough was a little harder because we started to feel the hike in our lungs and took frequent breaks, making it the most time consuming piece of our hike. I only managed to take one picture of the trough, and my camera was freaking out a little from the incoming fog.

After our very slow ascent of the trough came the Narrows, which yes, is literally a stretch of narrow trail next to a drop off. When we conquered the narrows came the scariest part for me... the homestretch. The homestretch was a tad frightening because it's a couple hundred feet of altitude gain at a likely 45 degree angle. I couldn't handle it at first, then I saw this 8-10 year old child zip past me and I pulled it together. 

After the Homestretch we reached the most majestic sight of the day, the summit. We took a few pictures, tried not to nap like everyone up there, then began the descent. Which took less time than the ascent but was more painful on the joints. We also ran out of food at the summit, so we were beyond starving the whole way down. 

Through all the whining and groaning up and down, this trip was absolutely worth it. We look forward to completing more fourteeners as soon as they thaw out enough for us beginners. Thanks for reading and happy trails.
-Kate

P.S. If you'd like to see Tony's video compilation of this hike here she blows,

Fauna:

Pika

Yellow-bellied Marmot

Snowshoe Hare

Abert's Squirrel

Least Chipmunk

               -Reactions-

•        Fauna Interest  6.0/10
• Geological Interest  8.0/10
•        Floral Interest  5.0/10