Greater Yellowstone Coalition | Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

Jackson, the GYC annual meeting, and the room to roam

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Leslie

Soon the snows will be upon us but last week I was lucky enough to catch the fall colors in and around Jackson. I attended the annual Greater Yellowstone Coalition meeting, always informative and fun. I boarded the dog (no dogs allowed on Teton trails) and left a few days early. The conference used to be a weekend affair, but the last few years has been reduced to just one full day and evening.

Ah, the Tetons end of sept.

Traveling through Yellowstone on Tuesday, the day was hot and all the wildlife, except a few bison, were well hidden and resting. Gros Vente campground was one of the few still open, and even about 1/3 of that was closed. Its puzzling that the two Parks choose to close so many campgrounds as early as September when the weather usually is fairly mild through even mid-October and the visitors are still packing the area.

My friend and I took a short evening walk around the campground and the nearby Gros Vente river. Especially at this time of year, moose abound and its easy to have a sighting let alone one or two running through the campground. A large bull with a tremendous rack was stopping traffic just a mile down the road by the river.

Tucked among the rocks and willows was a curious scientific set-up: a microphone with a recording box set up with a solar unit. Not sure what study they were doing but it looked suspiciously like the ‘wolf howl’ machine I’ve seen in Sunlight. But maybe they were studying coyotes around the campground, because that night, tucked in my tent around 11pm, I heard howling and response howling really close. In fact so close, that pretty soon I heard sniffing around the outside of my tent. I figured a coyote was smelling Koda smells (who of course wasn’t there tonight but had been inside of that tent just a few weeks prior). It was a strange and curious incident.

The next day I took a wonderful hike up to the mouth of Death Canyon from the parking lot of the newish Rockefeller compound.

Phelps Lake, Rockefeller Preserve

About ten years ago Rockefeller donated his home to the Park with the stipulation that only a small parking area be built which would limit the amount of hikers at any one time. There is no overflow parking. I’ve been up the one mile hike to where Phelps Lake and the former buildings were, but never past that. The large and beautiful lake sits at the base of Death Canyon, a steep, massive drainage that is very inviting despite its name.

Looking into Death Canyon from Phelps Lake

We hiked around the lake, up to the canyon entrance, then headed north around the base of outcropping where a waterfall cascaded down. Huckleberries overflowed and distracted us from the hike. We ate our fill on the way in and out. The aspens in this area hadn’t yet begun to change.

The next day I headed up to Taggart and Bradley Lakes. Just a tiny bit north of Phelps Lake, all the plants including the aspens were aglow in their fall beauty. I assume there are tiny micro-climates in these various canyons and that was why just a few miles north this area was ablaze in color while Phelps was not. The hike is a nice 6 mile loop and I made it a bit longer by continuing up towards Amphitheater Lake. Several days later I approached Amphitheater Lake from Lupine Meadows trailhead, a trail more forested with conifers–Douglas and sub-alpine firs–than aspens.

Enjoying the Taggart Lake hike in 80 degree fall weather

The GYC meeting was full of information, focusing on climate change. Without going into all the details and speakers, you can read the final report here on climate around our area and what’s happening after all the data is analyzed. This data comes from actual weather stations set up around our area recording climate information for the last 100 years. As is usual with climate change information, the future for the area looks troubling at best and makes the need for corridors north/south and east/west even more important. In fact, the keynote speaker, Doug Chadwick, author of The Wolverine Way (which explores the research on Wolverines being done in Glacier National Park) called for just that kind of broader coalition between the Crown of the Continent and the Greater Yellowstone Area. In order for these large predators to survive, they must have room to roam. The future implores us to embrace new paradigms for the survival of so many species, from the Pika to Bighorn Sheep to Grizzly Bears and Wolverines. We need to start thinking bigger, much bigger. Room to roam is the very next step we need to embrace. The Yellowstone to Yukon idea needs to mature from dream to reality in so short of time.

Filed under: Wildlife Corridors | Tagged: Global warming and the Greater Yellowstone area, Grand Tetons, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Greater yellowstone ecosystem, Teton National Park | 1 Comment »

GYC annual meeting in Jackson

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Leslie

I just returned from Jackson for the annual Greater Yellowstone Coalition meeting. The convention was at the plush Jackson Lake Lodge. The lodge lobby sits in Grand Teton National Park overlooking a large wetland where elk are calving, moose are bedding, and grizzlies are eating. There’s something wonderful and strange about viewing all the wildlife activity from the comforts of the heated lobby. Of course, you can also go out on the balcony, but if its raining, as it frequently was, I almost felt guilty being so comfortable inside looking out.

View from Jackson Lake lodge

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition is such a great conservation group. It’s an organization working within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to solve wildlife/human conflicts. Its works on issues as diverse as legislation to preserve prime habitat areas to preventing oil and gas leases. There is a level head to the organization as it attempts to throw out a wider community net and partner groups that might not have otherwise come together.

The annual meeting was fabulous. This is my third one in four years, and I think it was the best. Some highlights: Alexandria Fuller, the keynote speaker, who was charasmatic, witty, and very funny. She had the crowd laughing over stories from her hometown in Africa and then crying when she discussed her new book about a young man killed in the oil fields because of poor safety procedures.

The other two highlights for me were on Saturday morning. Kevin Hurley of Wyoming Game and Fish led a round table discussion I joined on Open Grazing on public lands. His focus was the plight of the bighorn sheep in Idaho. Afterwards he gave a presentation on the Bighorn Sheep migration around where I live on the Beartooth front. Just in the last few years, after doing some collaring, they’ve discovered the migration of the bighorns, which follows a peculiar and ancient arc pattern.

Geoffrey O’Gara of Wyoming Public Television followed with a fantastic preview of a new PBS documentary he’s working on about the pronghorn migration and the push to preserve land along their route. The documentary will raise critical awareness of this pressing issue.

I highly recommend that anyone going to the Tetons take the time to stop and visit the newly opened Laurance Rockefeller Preserve. Donated in 2001, but just opened to the public last year, this was the private residence of the Rockefellers and one of the most pristine places easily accessible by car. Take the time to walk to the lake. Laurance used to have his guests park in the parking area and walk the mile and a half to get to the residence by the lake. That way they’d leave their worries at the gate and begin to experience the wonders of this natural place.

Here is a photo I took of mama moose nursing her calf along the trail to Phelps Lake at the Rockefeller Preserve.