NOTE: As you can see from the date below, this essay is about 3 years old, and comes from a body of work that I typed up while I was working my summer season at Yellowstone National Park.
22nd of June, 2007 Flowing past my home at the South Gate of Yellowstone is the Snake River. It is a constant presence at the station, and most of us here have used it to calm our nerves a time or two when the booth was threatening to drive us to distraction. I was working a late shift tonight and decided to take a river walk before it got dark.
Being the day after the summer solstice, darkness does fall fully until about ten o’clock at night so I had two hours between when I got off at eight and full darkness—it always seems twice as dark in grizzly country. I change out of my uniform and throw on some shorts, a t-shirt, and my Chaco sandals and walk down to the riverbank. I cross several small channels and am soon confronted with the main river. It is swift and wide but I am able to cross it with little difficulty at a shallow portion. I am now in the area closed for Bear Management until next month and where off-trail travel is illegal. Remembering that I had just seen the Backcountry ranger hanging his clothes out on the line as I left, I leave the trail, confident that I would not be seen.
I wade through the lush forest undergrowth and emerge into a large meadow that extends up to the edge of Huckleberry Mountain to the southeast. Cranes and geese call from an unseen marsh. I continue to walk north along the river soon coming jumping and swearing occasionally as I tread on an overlooked thistle. I see a point of bone sticking out above the grass and I reach down to grasp it, coming away with a massive elk antler. I weigh it silently in my hands, contemplative, wondering where it’s previous owner was. I return it to its grassy bed; by summer’s end it will be gone, giving calcium and sustenance to the many small critters that love to gnaw on antlers. Osteoporosis suffers might be better served to simply gnaw on the occasional antler rather than swallow pill after pill… I continue my riverwalk and come to a small thermal stream, I test the water, it’s not steaming down here by the river and is pleasantly warm like a freshly drawn bath. I wade into the river and enjoy the odd sensation of hot thermal water clashing with the cold snowmelt of the Snake.
I follow the stream toward its source, wading through a small field of thermophilic yellow flowers. I stop short of the stream’s source, however, as I am getting dangerously close to the Wolf den. Not that wolves are a danger, in fact it’s not unheard of for humans to enter a wolf den—with wolves in it and come away unscathed. No, I am primarily worried about disturbing the pups, who are too young to move which is the alpha female’s usual course of action when humans intrude too much. I haven’t seen them yet, but maybe next week I will. The only wolves I have seen in my month and a half here were across the Hellroaring valley through a very powerful spotting scope. I haven’t heard a wolf yet either, although some of my friends here have. I hope to hear one soon.
The sun is beginning to set behind the pitchstone plateau, and I start looking for a place to cross. I start across a patch of riffles but it is too deep and swift for me to cross. I start walking back toward the ford I had used earlier which was now out of sight. The bugs are terrible. Mosquitoes attack any exposed flesh and night begins to fall. I realize that I need to cross soon, since I am on the wrong side of the river, in shorts and sandals, with no Bear Spray (courage in a can!). I walk by a calm, deep stretch where the water slips silently past.
It is in this silence that I heard it. A faint but unmistakable wail, soon joined by others. Wolves. I am listening the ancient primeval music of the wild, a sound that sends chills up the spine of even the most seasoned outdoorsman. I smile and stand still, listening, drinking it in, the bugs forgotten for the moment. The wolves stop their serenade and I look back at the darkening river. I decide to cross at the deep spot and peel off my clothes holding them in a bundle over my head as I cross. The water is cold but not compared to the icy rivers back home.
The water is up to my chest but I sink down further as the bugs begin their assault on my bare back. I crawl out on the opposite shore and pull my clothes back on and begin to walk back to the complex. I look at my watch, only 45 minutes have passed since my first crossing…
-Charlie Kolb, Snake River Ranger Station, Yellowstone
