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Posted by Ballpark Frank (64.79.35.96) on 11:44:08 12/20/19
Hi Dave,
I had intended to post links to a few of the photos from this now 43 image album, but I realized most, if not all, of the images would likely show up oversized. Then it dawned on me that I could just post a link to the Meetup page, and anyone that wanted could see the entire album, without suffering the sordid optics of oversizing.
Just scroll down to where the 6 photos reside, and click on the top left photo (thermal runoff from the Crater Hills). That will take you to Photo #1. You can scroll horizontally from there
You can enlarge any of the photos simply by clicking on it.
FYI, if you have the time, and feel like it, you can access any of the other 77 past Meetups, and pull up similar photo albums. There is a fair amount of off-trail "stuff" if you like that sort of thing.
Here's a bit of backstory:
Donny Racz, my hiking partner, works as a seasonal NPS employee at Lake Maintenance. He is also on the fire department, and is an EMT. He carries a park portable radio, and I have my programmable scanner, which is packed with park frequencies, FS freqs, and local EMS, fire, and law enforcement freqs. We were up on a hilltop south of the east end of the pond, eating a casual lunch while watching grizzlies come and go from the pond and assumably, the carcass. Each bear departed heading due north, down the ridge and across a flat meadow to the long (east-west) tree "island" just south of Alum Creek. I'm pretty sure this is the forest that the Craighead's and several of their grad student assistants were wandering through one day back in the 1960s, and in Frank Craighead's book, "Track of the Grizzly", he tells of them running into somewhere around 10-15 different grizzlies in their daybeds. (I've always thought this looked like prime grizzly habitat.)
While we were eating lunch, both radios started squawking an alert tone and subsequent radio traffic as 700 dispatched Lake Fire to the Fishing Bridge YPSS station, where a motor home was burning behind the building, and threatening another vehicle and some propane tanks. It sounded dire! Out where we were, Donny wasn't going to be much use responding, but we monitored the traffic. It was the weekend, and resources were scarce. One responder went to the firehouse, but was not certified to drive the truck, so he had to wait for someone that could drive the apparatus. It was melodramatic, but they did prevent the catastrophe that was looming at Fishing Bridge.
I just added 3 EPILOG photos to this album, which were taken on Labor Day, 9/3/18. Four of us walked out to the pond, hoping to see critters. We got skunked on bears and wolves, but saw plenty of bison west of the Crater Hills. Michele E, who posted on the 8/4/18 Meetup, was with us on 9/3/18, along with a friend of hers.
Ballpark
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