It’s cheaper than reconstructive surgery,” leered the elderly shop owner,
placing $45-worth of highly pressurised cayenne pepper on the counter with
the confidence of a man whose sales pitch hadn’t failed him in years. A
blood-spattered face stared dolefully out from the side of the canister —
“Designed by a genuine bear-attack survivor! Effective at 30ft!” I thought
of my mother at my graveside and opened my wallet, then drove on through the
thickening woods to the entry gates. A can of bear spray on the way into
Yellowstone Park — it might be the best $45 you’ll ever spend... or it might
be the last.
In fact, my life was far from in the balance as I steered my RV into grizzly
country. The Greater Yellowstone area, a towering patch of mountains,
forests and sulphurous volcanic activity in the northwestern hinterland of
the USA, with the world’s oldest national park at its heart, has only
witnessed nine fatal bear attacks in the past 100 years, and the majority of
those lost souls had made considerable strides towards deserving their fate.
In 1907 an early tourist to the park chased two bear cubs up a tree and
stood poking them with his umbrella while mummy bear arrived on his blind
side and taught him a lesson his watching companions never forgot.
On two poetically just occasions, poachers have trapped grizzlies in grotesque
steel foot-clamps and approached them, skinning knife raised, only to
discover that there is something more deadly than a wounded tiger. One
amateur wildlife photographer decided that, to get the perfect shot, he
needed to get within 15ft of a bear, a distance an adult grizzly can travel
in less than half a second. And, most famously, in 1972 a young backpacker
left food and unwashed dishes lying around his camp site, and fatally
attracted a hungry beast. His parents sued the park for not making it
crystal clear that bear country might possibly be a dangerous place in which
to slob out.
Thus statistically ennobled, I drove into Yellowstone’s timber and meadowland
interior with a light heart, only for spirits to plummet with the dawning
realisation that the most likely explanation of the park’s relative safety
is that bears don’t like traffic. The greatest peril ahead seemed certain to
be a Chevy van veering unpredictably into my path in pursuit of the perfect
view of a family of elk.
Yellowstone, you see, holds a special place in both American and worldwide
hearts, as its unique and mystical gifts inspired the very idea of
preserving wild and special places as national parks, and it thus attracts
3m visitors a year. As the overwhelming majority bring a car along for the
ride, there’s a considerable risk of the landscape being loved to death.
Commuter rush hours are established by the timetables for likely geyser
eruptions, as the massed ranks hurry for the best view, while roadside
animal encounters, of which there are many, produce chaotic temporary car
parks of zoom-lens wielding naturalists, crowding for the perfect wilderness
image of a bison scratching its arse on a tree stump. And, all the time, the
park rangers in their Hanna-Barbera hats patiently spend their days pointing
out that: “Ma’am, that’s a 140-stone wild animal you’re standing three feet
from/trying to pet/placing your child on top of... please reconsider.”
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Page 3: four more US national parks
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Thank heavens, this maelstrom is easily escaped. Three strategies, one soon
learns, reveal the best of Yellowstone and shield you from the worst. The
first is to avoid the perilously expensive park hotels and plump for the
camp sites, where from your RV or tent you can enjoy half-whispered
conversations with equally peace-seeking neighbours, and wander down to
rivers and lakesides for quiet communion with the fly-fishermen, the elk and
maybe even the moose that populate the shorelines.
Second, dusk and dawn must be enjoyed to the full: that’s when the animals are
at their most active, and when you’ll be sharing the road with the serious
nature lovers, wielding interstellar binoculars in the hunt for the trickier
ticks on the Yellowstone spotter’s list — doughty long-horn sheep, beavers,
otters and, most elusive of all, wolves. One twilight, I tracked a pair of
wolves who were ominously, relentlessly shadowing a family of elk across the
open flood plain of the Yellowstone River. The end of the epic was out of
sight but inevitable — a favoured lupine tactic is to slowly, methodically
walk their prey to death.
Third, and most important, park up, backpack up and do some hiking. Even a
mile from the road, the crowds disappear completely and Yellowstone recovers
all its magic.
I had set my heart on seeing the Pelican Creek Valley, a wide treeless basin
away from any human presence, with thick forest on three sides and jagged
sawtooth mountains on the fourth — so I did what any Yellowstone hiker must
do and consulted the ranger station.
“Yip, that’s grizzly country in there, and it’s pretty active. If you stay on
the low ground, you should be okay. They’re in the trees on the high slopes
right now, they’re eating the pine cones — that’s how ravenous they are. Got
spray? Good. And make a lot of noise!” Hiking in Yellowstone is not a
peaceful activity. A surprised bear is a moody one, so I set off over the
low ridge into Pelican Creek val-deri-ing and val-dera-ing for all I was
worth, slapping my walking stick on every log on the path and trying not to
whistle jauntily (whistling, apparently, sounds too much like prey).
After a cacophonous mile, the forest cleared to reveal Pelican Creek,
aimlessly winding its way through the tan grass of the perfect widescreen
valley floor, with those off-limits high forests rolling away to a clear
horizon, and the alpine peaks to the east wearing the first snowfall of
autumn. The scene was perfected with my own personal herd of bison, a
caravan of dust, hair and haunch strolling along the riverbank. I climbed a
rise and found a smaller clan a few yards from the path, grazing
noiselessly.
It’s easy to see why so many visitors to Yellowstone cannot compute that bison
might be dangerous — they have the physiques of comic-book superheroes, with
their vast shoulders tapering to a cluster of dainty, tottering feet. The
leader of this family left me under no illusions, though, delivering a snort
and a toss of his horns that I interpreted, Dolittle-style, to mean: “I’m as
dumb as a heifer, as mean as a wasp and as fast as a steeplechaser, and
you’re standing too close.” After a wide diversion, the river was reached
and lunch was served, with the additional diversion of watching a rogue male
bison and the caravan’s leader brutally clashing horns in the far distance.
The problem with binoculars, though, is that they do tend to distract from the
unmagnified world around you. The bear was no more than 40 yards away when I
shot to my feet with an unpublishable flurry, hand wobbling over the bear
spray like a novice gunfighter. Jet black, but with the distinctive
hunchback of a grizzly, it was strolling towards the river, nose down for
dinner. My stumbling announced that there was company, he looked up, and our
gazes met in stillness. For an unforgettable instant, I stared into those
eyes, two unfathomable, pristine black pools, awash with . . . well, with
complete and utter indifference. With boredom, in fact, at yet another
scrawny, meat-free, scarcely-worth-killing hiker making a racket and scaring
away the real food. The bear silently hung a left, moved on over the river
and followed his nose west, never giving me another thought. I watched for
half an hour as he patrolled the valley floor, then he disappeared into the
high forest.
At which point it started to snow, a thick, spinning blizzard that settled
first on the bison’s backs, then onto the pine branches and finally into a
perfectly pressed sheet lying across the valley floor, only the steam from the
hot springs breaking through the whiteness. Before they named it Yellowstone
National Park, they used to call it Wonderland.
- Brian Schofield’s forthcoming book, on the history and ecology of the Old
West, will be published by HarperCollins
Travel details: the closest airport to the park is Jackson
Hole, 56 miles away. Opodo (0871 277 0090, www.opodo.co.uk) has fares
from £490, with United Airlines from Heathrow via Chicago. Or try
Trailfinders (0845 058 5858, www.trailfinders.com). Cruise America
(www.cruiseamerica.com) has RVs for hire from £900 a week inclusive,
from Jackson Hole. If you’d prefer a package, Kuoni (01306 747008,
www.kuoni.co.uk) has an 11-night fly-drive from £890pp, including
flights from Heathrow with United Airlines and inclusive RV hire.
Alternatively, try Complete North America (0115 950 4555,
www.completenorthamerica.com).
Page 3: four more US national parks
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Go wild in four more parks
IT IS the extraordinary diversity of America’s national parks that makes them
so special, from desert to lush subtropical forests to mountains. Here
are four more.
DENALI
Six million acres and just one road — Denali is rugged Alaskan wilderness
dominated by North America’s highest peak: 20,320ft Mount McKinley. The
USA’s oldest national park is home to grizzlies, caribou, wolves and
moose, a playground for campers, rafters, climbers and bikers. Bon
Voyage (0800 316 0194, www.bon-voyage.co.uk) has a 10-day fly-drive to
Anchorage from £745pp.
BIG BEND
Big Bend covers 800,000 acres of outrageously photogenic southwest Texan
desert. Riven by canyons, the park offers excellent rafting, kayaking
and hiking. North American Highways (01902 851138,
www.northamericanhighways.co.uk) has a 14-night, B&B fly-drive with
four nights in Big Bend.
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS
The most visited national park in the USA, the Smokies harbour deep old-growth
forest and parts of the Appalachian Trail. It’s a hiking mecca along the
border between North Carolina and Tennessee, with vibrant fall colours
and the most biologically diverse 813 temperate square miles on the
planet. Premier Holidays (0870 889 0852, www.premierholidays.co.uk) has
a week’s fly-drive to Knoxville, Tennessee, from £899, including
flights, car and accommodation.
EVERGLADES
Battered by recent hurricanes, under pressure from land-hungry developers, the
Everglades is still one of America’s natural wonders: 1m acres of
subtropical, reedy wetlands, home to crocs, manatees and panthers, just
30 miles from the buzz of downtown Miami. Take an evening, ranger-led
canoe trip to see it properly — sunset over the Ten Thousand Islands, as
the wildlife comes alive, is awesome. Virgin Holidays (0871 222 1232,
www.virginholidays.co.uk) has a week’s fly-drive to Miami from £459,
including flights and car.
