Yellowstone in spring

On a rocky slope next to the two-lane road through the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park, a grizzly bear sow encourages her twin cubs to scramble down the rocky, muddy bank and cross the road.

Like their 500-pound mother, the bark-brown cubs scratch around on a sandbar in the middle of the Lamar River about four or five yards from the pavement. The sow flips over river rocks and nibbles at the bugs attached to the stones’ undersides. The cubs emulate her rock-rolling activity.

The Lamar River, which two short weeks ago flowed with ice chunks, will soon gush with mountain snowmelt. Sedges and grasses gradually turn chartreuse under longer days. Aspen leaves burst into spring greenery.

Relatively few of the park’s visitors – which numbered 3,151,342 last year, up 9.8 percent from 2006 – travel inside Yellowstone in April and May. Yet those who do are rewarded with many wildlife sightings.

In this mountain valley, spring squalls blow snow across aspen groves and native grasses. Bison graze unharassed by the weather. Elk calves, cayenne-pepper red and fuzzy, scamper among small herds of elk cows.

A coyote sneaks across the road, ever on the lookout for food to scavenge – and on the lookout for Yellowstone’s famous wolves.

When a lone vehicle cruises along the road next to the river, the grizzly sow stands on her hind legs, sniffing the cool, 40-degree spring air. The cubs, too, stand up – though at about 24 inches tall, the year’s spring crop of Ursus horribilis cannot see over the riverbank to the roadbed.

“Spring is the best time in the whole year to see grizzly bears and cubs,” says Jim Halfpenny, owner of A Naturalist’s World adventure guiding services, based in Gardiner, Mont.

“I see most of the bears especially in the latter half of May,” he says, “which is when I jealously hoard my time to be able to watch wildlife on my own.”

Halfpenny leads two-day to two-week naturalist trips into the world’s first national park, where, more often than not, he finds 20 or more grizzly bears in a day – some near the road through the Lamar Valley, and some visible only through a spotting scope.

“One spring Saturday, I watched a grizzly sow come down the valley with two cubs, working their way east,” recalls Halfpenny. “They crossed the road and walked toward the Druid Pack’s den (of wolves).

“On that next day, a Sunday, she only had one cub. Two wolves were trying to kill the other cub. She’d reach out and pull the cub under her belly. Then a wolf would bite at her flank, and as she turned to protect herself from that wolf, the other wolf would try to grab her bear cub.”

Halfpenny’s newest book, “Yellowstone Bears in the Wild” (Riverbend Publishing, 2007), reveals this incident and many others in photographs.

The Yellowstone Institute offers Lodging and Learning packages and field seminars taught by biologists and naturalists. For example, the Spring Wildlife Show on May 13-15 accepts up to 12 people at $270 each and includes short hikes, wildlife viewing, expert leaders and travel in a minibus from Gardiner.

While Halfpenny, who also teaches Institute courses, encourages visitors to take one of his wildlife classes, he realizes that some won’t. So he emphasizes ethics and safety to all Yellowstone guests:

“Good wildlife viewers don’t talk and don’t slam car doors. When you stop at a roadside pullout, talk in low voices and do not approach animals. It’s amazing, but loud voices, laughter and especially high-pitched loud voices carry for two miles in that valley.”

The National Park Service offers additional safety precautions for wildlife viewing. A recent press release noted that while outside and away from the vehicle, walkers, hikers and bikers “should travel in groups and make noise by calling out or clapping at frequent intervals, especially near streams and at blind spots on trails. These actions will help avoid surprise encounters.

“Do not approach any wildlife; instead, use binoculars, telescopes or telephoto lenses to get closer looks.”

The basic rule is to remain at least 100 yards from any bear and, at a minimum, 25 yards from other animals.

Savvy hikers also pack pepper spray, which is specifically sold as a last-ditch weapon against a charging bear. A canister costs about $45 and is available at most sports stores in the greater Yellowstone area and inside the park at the gift shops in Mammoth, which is open this time of year.

“Visitors should also keep food and other odorous attractants stored in hard-sided vehicles or bear-proof food storage boxes,” notes the park service information. “Garbage must be deposited into a bear-resistant trash can or dumpster.

“These actions help keep bears from becoming conditioned to human food and help keep park visitors and their property safe.”

As frightful as these cautions may seem, few encounters actually occur, especially if humans maintain sufficient distance from wildlife.

Several short hikes diverge from the Mammoth-to-Cooke City route, which generally attract many hikers – a deterrent to some wildlife.

In Mammoth, a huff-and-puff mile of boardwalk trails climb around the massive Mammoth Terraces hot springs formation, providing about an hour’s walk. The Terraces are some of the park’s 10,000 hydrothermal features, nearly half of the world’s total.

Evidence of the 1988 fires resembles a crew cut on the nearby peaks. Charred timber and new growth show the fires’ handiwork on the 793,880 acres – 36 percent of the park – that burned.

East of Mammoth about 10 minutes (and a quarter-mile east of Lava Creek Picnic Area) is the Wraith Falls trailhead, where a gentle half-mile path wends through meadow and sparse forest to the falls.

Visitors may glimpse several bull elk lounging here. At this time of year, their antlers are still in velvet and not fully regrown after the shed last winter.

Shed antlers and bleached bones litter the park; however, it’s against the law to take anything from the park – even rocks.

The road from Gardiner to Mammoth Hot Springs, then east to Tower Junction and on to the Northeast Entrance at Silver Gate/Cooke City, Mont., remains open to vehicles all winter. It’s here that the famous wolves of Yellowstone trot through valleys and through binocular views.

As Yellowstone’s residents come out of hibernation, an extended state of dormancy, they search for food.

Different animals use a variety of methods used to get through the winter. According to park naturalists, reptiles and amphibians become much more sluggish in the winter; the process is called “brumation.” They survive the winter through a variety of techniques, including finding areas where water does not freeze or hiding in leaf litter to keep warm enough to survive.

By early spring, most of the large mammals make appearances, including wolves. Wildlife biologists estimate that within the three-state area of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, 100 breeding pairs and 1,500 total wolves roam the region.

While the wolves were “delisted” from the Endangered Species List on March 28, ending federal protection of the animals, the wolves inside the national park remain protected.

In the Lamar Valley, several packs follow the elk herds, battle with the dominating Druid Pack and splinter from established packs into small loner groups.

One of the easiest ways to find wolves is to find the biologists tracking them using telemetry equipment at a roadside pullout.

And when approaching the biologists, visitors should remain quiet – not slam car doors and whisper, “Do you see wolves?”