Tetons, Beaver Dam and Birds

Here is the grandest scene I know of in the U.S. Park System.  Walk in the entrance of the Jackson Lake Lodge in the Tetons and mount the long flight of steps in front of you to the main lobby.  As you do, windows three stories high come into view straight ahead of you.  At the top of the steps you are drawn across the lobby where you gaze at the Teton Range.  It’s staggering.  If the weather is fine, you will immediately walk outside for a better view.  No where else in the country do mountains rise so sharply and so high above the surrounding plain.

From the Tetons I drove directly north into Yellowstone, crossing the Divide near Grant Village, and taking the easterly route around to Gardner, Montana, and then north to Livingston to share an evening meal with family friends.  From there I doubled back south to sample the CDT at Red Rock Pass and moved the RV west to Beaver Dam Campground in the National Forest off I-15 in order to hike north in the afternoon from Chief Joseph Pass.

Here is a page from my journal describing the Forest Service Campground at Beaver Dam:

“Back at the Forest Service’s Beaver Dam Campground, a flycatcher came calling with very distinctive notes.  Sibley describes the song as, “Quick, three beers”, an olive-sided flycatcher.  I can’t remember when I saw one last.  It is after nine.  Light is fading fast.  A robin sings, but his notes are challenged by Country Western music.  The nearest RV is at least 400’ away, but I can almost hear the words.  The family with the sound box can’t possibly hear the robin.  How sad that they come here and choose not to hear.  ATVs, motorized bikes and cars are the only things I see moving on the graded road and forest roads that splinter off it.  This is my second night.  I counted ten RVs and yet I have seen no one walk.  I have seen no one with a field guide, no one taking a picture of a scene in nature while I have been here.  Last night I heard voices and music until 12:30 when I fell off to sleep.”

RVers can further separate themselves from nature by buying a “toy hauler.”  This is an RV with a compartment in the rear for large toys.  Instead of a pair of binoculars, some field guides, a pair of hiking boots, a kayak or a fly rod, the owner can more easily bring into the woods, motorized trail bikes, ATVs, even a jeep, vehicles that go fast, burn fuel and make noise.  We have a school problem dealing with over-stimulated students.  But I think we have a problem with over-stimulated adults as well.  Nature, the last environment for reflection and contemplation, is in danger of being consumed by feverish activity.

At long last, tomorrow I will be in Whitefish on the doorstep of Glacier National Park.