While there's plenty of feasible routes for a youth to prove his manhood to himself & whichever sort of society he aims to impress, nothing quite makes the full, proud weight of the scrotum felt like the first overnight hike through grizzly country. Bark Scarz, Todd "Bottled-Up-Whine" Jackson, and I set out to conquer the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone River. Besides the rite-of-passage aspect, this would also be the first opportunity for Todd (a professional photographer & a decade or so our senior) to begin mentoring Bark on wildlife & landscape lens-capture (all photo-credit in this entry goes to Todd & the Camry-priced, keg-sized Canon that survived the second-day storm. I'm quite grateful, as this adventure preceded the purchase of my own Kia-priced, credit-card sized Canon by a few months).
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| Bark & Peer soak in a grandiose view of The Yellowstone River, strapped with tell-tale low-tech packs of UYNP freshmen. |
In 2009 the trail was fair game, in that the ground it covered shared space between YNP land & neutral Montana ground. We chose it based on hearing that it'd be clear of snow well enough that early in the season, and receiving a ranger-guarantee that we'd encounter at least one bear. I've heard rumor since '09 about how some of that neutral land's become privatized in some manner, and thus the trail is now compromised to an extent. Damn shame, because it's some kinda spectacular 18.5 mile traverse.
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| An ornery guardian-shaman of the back-country hints his displeasure at our presence with raised-tail. |
Bark and I learned that even though Todd whined like a dashboard's confessions, he could keep up well enough and wasn't afraid to face the fears we were well-versed in from the automatic bitch-fountain that warbled in a cloud around most of his contributions to conversation, almost as if he were perfecting some sort of "cry-baby sheik" of tough-guyism. Luckily it flipped on-&-off appropriately, and proved to be a decent gauge for how stormy the skies were or muddy the ground really was. Todd's overly-voiced doubts that we'd never see a bear, as we'd been promised, made it all the more thrilling when we caught sight of a momma black bear & three playful cubs across the river in the last couple miles of the journey:
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| Motherhood |
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| Spotting a bull-snake, Bark is torn between his rural Louisiana urges to cook it for supper & the National Park law to leave wildlife well alone. |
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| Drunk with wanderlust, I disturb the sacred skull of a fallen shaman. |
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