Ride~About: Savoring Spring Across Yellowstone

Early spring, a time to savor the blessed warmth of the sun rising higher in the sky, the snow giving way to flowing creeks and warm ground, and all nature’s creatures relishing the release from the frigid challenge of staying alive. Soaking up the rays on a beautiful spring day is wonderful for all of us and this bison cow could not be more peaceful.

spring

Today we will drive the loop from Bozeman, MT entering Yellowstone through the West Entrance in West Yellowstone. We’ll then explore sections of the park that are open to early-spring auto travel and return to Bozeman by way of Mammoth Hot Springs. Come, let’s explore together the season that is the promise of renewal!

Continue in anticipation. . .

SNAP*Shot: Trumpeter Swans

Trumpeter Swans, beautiful and majestic, are North America’s largest waterfowl and heaviest flying bird. This dark, windy winter day is brightened by this white beauty keeping an eye on us as she guards her family. Females are called a pens and males are cobs.

adult trumpeter swan

Trumpeter Swans are a native species to North America. Most Trumpeters weigh 21-30 pounds, although large males can reach 35 pounds. Standing on the ground, an adult male can stand four feet high. With a wingspan over seven feet carrying that heavy body, Trumpeters need at least 100 yard “runway” of open water; running hard and fast across the surface of the water in order to generate enough speed for take off. What a sight!

Beginning in the late 1800s, Trumpeter’s were hunted to near extinction for their feathers to adorn fashionable hats, skin for face powder puffs, and long flight feathers coveted for writing quills. Aggressive conservation efforts helped the species recover by the early 2000’s. Since they generally build their nests atop beaver or muskrat dens, overhunting of these rodents diminished breeding habitat for Trumpeters. As the rodent populations recovered, the swan numbers improved. One of these years you’d think we’d recognize that this world is a system with each part relying on the others, including animals, bugs, birds, plants and people, hopefully helping preserve the balance. Sigh . . . but we did good helping the Trumpeters since in most of their range there are healthy populations that continue to increase.

Nests are sometimes built on large floating mats of vegetation. Their nest can be 11 feet across and 3 feet high and is often used by the same pair year after year. The young swans, called cygnets, turn white at about 1-1/2 years old. There are usually four to six eggs in a swan’s clutch. Trumpeters have an unusual way of incubating their eggs: they warm the eggs by covering them with their webbed feet. Once hatched in June, the cygnets can swim and feed within 24 hours. By 15 weeks they will have gained over a pound a week reaching up to 20 lbs. and will now be able to fly.

young trumpeter swans

We are told Trumpeters mate for life, but it appears that they change mates a number of times over their  lifetimes of more than 20 years. Cygnets stay with the parents over their first winter, but the parents chase them away in the spring as they begin planning for their next family. The young swans stay in sibling groups until about two years old when they themselves start the search for a mate and a new life in a remote open-water area.

SNAP*Shot: Lower Falls in Winter

Yellowstone in the white of winter is a stunning wonderland. The Lower Falls is magical in winter with baby-blue ice growing thicker and wider in this frigid season where temps reach -30 degrees and colder.

An ice cone forms at the base of the falls from splash, mist, and snowfall. It can grow 2/3 the height of the falls itself. The water, thick with cold, crashes down 308 feet sending mist into the air taller than the falls. From Lookout Point, the roar of falling water is muffled by the snow and ice buildup, but once at the bottom, the Yellowstone River flows downhill and north into Paradise Valley and ultimately to the Missouri River.

The beauty of this place just begs for us to linger, but as the wind picks up, we don’t have enough layers to keep the freezing chill at bay. Time to return to the warmth of the snowcoach and smile at the beauty of this special place wrapped in winter white.

Lower Falls in Winter

White Porcelain at Norris Geyser Basin

Yellowstone in winter is truly a wonderland. Quiet solitude, the result of few park visitors and the muffling effect of deep snow. Vast sparkling snow landscapes can feel disorienting and measuring snow depth in feet both define winter here. Last autumn we visited Porcelain Basin, one of two basins at Norris Geyser Basin. Today we will marvel at the basin in its winter glory–White Porcelain this time of year! Welcome to Yellowstone’s most acidic and hottest hydrothermal area and one of the most active earthquake areas in Yellowstone.

Porcelain Basin

Bundle up and let’s go