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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

21 November 2004 - 16:59

Lake dawn in fog - 25 Sep - part 2

Ahead of me a path well trodden by bison and hikers up the muddy bank onto the sagebrush bench. To my right, the lake shore curved around to the south, heading out onto a peninsula in Lake Yellowstone and disappeared into the morning fog.

To the right I went.

Hadn't gone 50 meters before I found a strange anomaly.

Ice.

A cluster of ice chunks, together in a small depression in the shore. Clearly spilled from someone's iced drink, but when? There are no fresh tracks along this stretch of shore. Could the ice have stayed frozen here all night? It was cold, yes, but that cold?

Apparently.

As I bent down to examine the frozen reminder that I am not the first to walk this shore, I hear new babbling sounds above the gentle ripple of waves.

Ducks. Several flotilla of mergansers and scaup appearing like magic out of the fog, paddling in unison for shore. Until I stand up, and then it is a uniform reverse course and they all disappear again, just as magically.

Soon I grow bored with the beach, and opt for another bison path up from shore. This one leading into the grove of trees that occupies the tip of the peninsula. A grove as filled with fog as the lake is covered.

I climb slowly, not wanting to surprise a bear in the trees above. But the only tracks are human, and bicycle.

I stand there silently in the trees, listening to a flicker or sapsucker flaking pieces of bark off a trunk, when I suddenly realize I am not alone. Another hiker is standing in the sage, at the edge of the fog. Whether not wishing to intrude on my morning, or just being prudently cautious, she sees me and then turns back and disappears back into the white mist.

Another soul seeking the peaceful solitude I have found, and now I have denied it to her. Suddenly I feel a need to not waste the opportunity stolen from another.

But peace is elusive, now. I hear several vehicles through the mist, and the loud warning beeps of a truck backing up by the store. A pine squirrel chatters at me, leaping from tree to log. At 07:47, I hear the sirens of an emergency vehicle.

Somebody is having a bad start to their day.

Walking up the faded two-track road littered with bison pies, I am surprised to find a small estuary on the far side of the point. A marshland of reeds and grasses, and drowned trees. Ducks out feeding hustle into the vegetation for cover.

Further up, at the end of the road and the spit of land, I am surprised to find a well-kept cabin hidden in the trees. Whether boarded up for the season, or permanently, I do not know. But it would be a wonderful place to stay.

A well-beaten path leads off from the cabin, doubling back the way I came, squeezed in between the edge of the trees and the steep drop down to the lake. I am well along the path before I realize it is not a human creation. The only tracks here are bison tracks, the soil churned deep by the massive, pointed hooves.

This may not be wise. But I continue on, until the path deadends at a large wallow at the point of the peninsula. Here some bull has churned the dirt until it is soft and malleable, a comfortable bed. Here, under the low branches of a Douglas fir he can lay in the afternoon sun in peace, not a half mile from all those annoying bipeds. I assume the breezes off the lake keep the annoying gnats and mosquitoes away in the summer, but I have to wonder if the bull also just enjoys the scenery, and the gentle slapping of the waves.

Not that far behind me, across the marsh, I hear an elk bugle.

Abandoning the wallow, I pass through the trees for a ways, and then drop back down to shore, passing through small thistles whose white blossoms seem to glow in the dim light. Again I reach the path up into the trees, the cove ahead fading away into the fog.

Once again I turn up into the trees, and am startled by a snapping branch. Not the elk, who is still bugling in the mists, but the hyper squirrel panicked by my return. It's two minutes after eight o'clock as I step out of the trees and follow the two-track out into the sage meadow. The blister I grew on my toe from yesterday just now starting to hurt.

I find an arrow drawn into the dirt, pointing the way to the bison path down onto the beach.

Hate to tell you this folks, they don't need it. They know where the path is. But I suppose a human hiker in this morning's fog may have felt to need to trace their steps.

At this point, it is actually shorter to walk up to our cabin than back to the hotel. But unfortunately, the SUV is at the overlook by the hotel. So, I turn left, and head west towards the trees hiding the ranger station, the morning fog finally starting to lift.

As I enter the road and pass the station, I encounter three walkers, two men and a woman, headed the other way. Talking animatedly in a foreign language that I would guess to be slavic, they suddenly turn silent as they near me. My howdy is returned with faint, accented "good morning"s. Then some distance behind me, they resume their rapid conversing.

I am not surprised to find the other photographer's vehicle gone from the overlook. The hotel is wide awake now, and tourists are strolling all along the overlook.

Time to go.

The fog is nearly gone by the time I return to our cabin.

Time to wake the wife for our breakfast at Lake.

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