Buffalo Mosh-Pit

In Mid-October... 

Buffalo, Lamar Valley

     Coty and I had driven to Idaho Falls, Idaho from Old Faithful, Yellowstone, Wyoming to get some groceries. It's about a 130 mile drive one way, and takes one hour to even get out of the park, depending on BJ's (Buffalo Jam's), despite the 31 mile trek it is to West Yellowstone, Montana, which is the entrance/exit to Yellowstone. Technically, it's the West Entrance, hence the name of the town. There are many entrances to the park, but this is the closest one to us.
     On our way back from Idaho Falls, Idaho, it was dark. It was pretty late by this time as we had explored for a while in Idaho Falls, and went to Walmart for probably 2 hours. We ate dinner there, and headed back after getting enough groceries to last us at least two weeks so we don't have to go on another 6 hour trek just for groceries.
    We entered the park at night, which is one of the coolest things ever. It's so dark, zero street lights, and you get to see some animals doing some weird things as you normally wouldn't during the day. Granted, at this hour there was not one single car around for miles, and it was 2:30 AM. We rounded the corner by Midway Geyser Basin where luckily the speed limit is 35 mph, or we probably would have smooshed the Coyote in the road that was just around the bend.
    After seeing the Coyote, we slowed to a stop. It was standing about ten feet from an unsuspecting loner Bison, in which case the Coyote looked at us like he was doing something wrong and headed back up the mountain. The Bison continued to munch down about a pound of weeds and grass every few minutes, so we continued on. If you've ever come up on a Bison in the road at night, it's one of the most horrifying things ever. Your headlights reflect off of just it's eyes and horns, which looks like the Devil is standing in front of your car and is just about to steal your soul.
     We rounding the next turn which was maybe a mile up the road, and were forced to come to a dead stop again, which happens a lot. There were about ten Bison, shoulder to shoulder, running down the middle of the road. You wouldn't think these 2,000+ lb. creatures would be able to book it, but they can run 30 miles per hour or better, and they can even jump fences. That's a whole other story, though.
     As these Bison are running shoulder to shoulder, they're taking up both lanes, so there was no going around them. We had to stop and observe, in which was some of the freakiest events I ever saw Buffalo partake in.
     Something had spooked them, I imagine, as we came up on them, they were running away from us. We thought that one little Coyote could not possibly have spooked 200 Bison, which we saw all over the place as we got closer to the ones running in a straight line. The Bison all at one steered themselves to the right and were in a field by Fairy Falls trail. As we snuck closer to them in hopes we could pass them eventually, we had our windows down. Yes, it was cold, but it's no fun not being able to hear what they were doing out there.
     We could hear them all around us, but could not see them. We could hear them sneaking up behind us, because they were snorting, breathing heavy and we could hear them walking. All year I did not see or hear of any Buffalo charge a car, but I didn't want to be the first. They were everywhere. All of a sudden, we saw Mom's and Babies running away from where we were just a few minutes prior, and they were running away from something. Up ahead, after dodging Buffalo driving about 1.2 miles per hour, we saw an injured one. She was apparently scalded by the hot water nearby as there are quite a few hot pools in that area. This happens a lot, and the poor girl was limping. Her fur was scorched off her skin, and her skin was bubbled. It was not a pretty sight, but there's nothing my animal-loving self could do about it, so we continued on.
     As we approached a pull-out (a place where you can pull off to the side of the road, turn around or just sit and observe), we stopped. There were probably nearing 100 Bison hiding in the trees, and I'm assuming that's where all the other Buffalo were headed was to meet up with the rest of the herd. I'm no animal scientist, but I can tell when something is up, and I wanted to know if they were high-tailing it from a bear, or a pack of wolves.
    We turned around because our curiosity was getting the best of us. We sat in the pull-out prior to the one we were at down the road, and turned on our brights. We could see there were about 40 Buffalo in a stampede headed straight for us down the road. Luckily we were off to the side of the road, but just as they darted across the street, they looked spooked and turned around all at once and went right back to the field they were just in. They all gathered into the thin trees, and with our headlights only reaching their eyes and horns (we were at a safe distance), the only thing we could see was all 40 Buffalo bucking.
     Every single one of those Buffalo, babies and all, were bucking like they had never bucked before. All you could see were their eyes bobbing and weaving. It was spooky, to say the least. They did this for what seemed like a very long time, and it's like they were trying to keep moving so whatever was after them would fear for getting trampled to death instead of getting their Buffalo Burgers for dinner.
     Even though it seemed like a long time, it was probably only 4-5 minutes. It looked like a Buffalo Mosh-Pit. A Mosh-Pit is what happens at concerts, where a whole bunch of people are jumping, and running into each other on purpose, and it's just a large group of chaotic moving about.
     It was almost 3 AM by this point, and we were only about 6 miles from home. We kept blinking and rubbing our eyes and asking each other if the other was actually seeing this because we were tired and hallucination was possible at this point. Neither of us were hallucinating. You should have seen our dog, Tank, during all of this chaos. I think he was just as amazed and horrified as we were, and probably just as confused. He just sat in his back seat and watched. After these Buffalo finished their mosh-pit, they all just stopped at once all at the same time. All you could see was 80 eyes staring at us from about 100 yards away. We knew there were triple the amount of Buffalo up the road behind us, and we didn't want to be snuck up on by whatever was after these large creatures, so we drove in the direction our car was facing, which was going back towards Midway-Geyser Basin.
     We were trying to find what was after them, and if I could have given them a heads-up, I would have, but we saw nothing. We didn't see any signs of Bears, and we didn't smell anything peculiar. When a Bear is nearby, the air smells like absolute crap. Bears smell awful. If you are in your tent, or whatever, and you smell something just completely horrifyingly bad, your partner probably did not fart, and it's most likely a Bear.
     We weren't away from the Buffalo for more than a minute and after we turned right around and went back, every single Buffalo was gone. The Mosh-Pit Buffalo had disappeared, and we couldn't see them in the field at all. We drove up the road a little ways, and it seemed all of them had gathered in the trees. I guess they too believe you're better off in large numbers than by yourself. There's no way a Coyote could have spooked all of them that bad, but Coyote's hunt in a fascinating way. Coyote packs send one Coyote by him or herself out to find prey to take down, the lone Coyote then is the bait, and once it finds food, all the rest of the pack comes out of the trees or where ever they were hiding, and attacks in numbers. I can see how a pack of Coyotes could spook a buffalo or two, but Coyote's aren't dumb enough to go after 200+ Buffalo when there's only 8-10 in a pack.

Bison - Lamar Valley

     After being completely freaked out by all these events happening, and Buffalo staring at us, and moshing about and running their big butts off, we arrived at home. Our apartment is a one-level building in an 8-Plex. We are on the far end, closest to the forest, and closest to any animal sightings. Our dog knows to go right to the door at night, just in case, but the moment we opened our doors, a foul smell filled the car, and we immediately shut the doors and drove to see if there was a bear around. If there was, it was gone, luckily, but we smelled it, and sat in the car for a while just in case. Even though we didn't go to bed until about 4 AM (we still had groceries to put away), it was a very memorable night. I tried to find any explanation of the Buffalo's in this kind of activity at night, but there is nothing I have found so far. Animals act a little crazy prior to a storm or earthquake, but there were neither that night or next day.

The Most Annoying Species in Yellowstone

     During the Summer in Old Faithful, it never really got too hot. Being from Utah, we were used to 100 degrees or more, so Old Faithful's 80 degrees was nice. What bothered me more than anything in Old Faithful, besides certain foreign tourists who didn't understand that it is rude to butt in line, was the Mosquito's. In Utah, our Mosquito's are mainly small. In Old Faithful, Yellowstone, they were bigger, and actually hurt to be bitten.
     Our neighbor was standing outside talking to us, and he had about twenty on his back and we had to tell him. It was disgusting. We went through SO many citronella candles, 100% Deet bugspray, and regular bug spray. We even had to buy dog bug spray because our dog was being eaten alive. We bought a big fly swatter, and our walls looked like a slaughter house for about 2 months. Every time the front door would open, at least ten Mosquito's would hijack a ride on our clothing, or wait by the door for it to open. They were everywhere. I was sure I was going to catch West Nile, or even Malaria. Ha!

     We ended up having to take our dog to the vet back in Utah because his Mosquito bites became infected on his stomach, then of course he licked them and made them worse. The bug spray for dogs that we purchased is called "Flys Off" (Not Flies). It worked GREAT. For anybody who is going to a bug infested place and want to protect their dog, that's the stuff to get. Our dog has weird allergies to things, and seems to go to the vet about once every 3 months for some random thing we have never heard of a dog getting. He's allergic to Corn, Mosquitos, Biting Flies, etc. But, that is a whole different blog post about him. He's mine and Coty's travel buddy, so we seem to run into some weird issues with him when we go places we don't usually find ourselves.
     Needless to say, we had so many Mosquito bites on us, it was awful. Coty is allergic to Mosquito bites, so his would turn into scabs and he looked like he had some rare form of Leprosy.
     If you've ever been to the middle of no where, and tried to sleep, it's a little rough. It's ridiculously quiet, although for those few months during the Summer, we could hear the Mosquito's at night when we slept. If one got inside, it could be heard in the Kitchen from the Bedroom down the hallway. Try to sleep with buzzing all night long. I tried to find it to kill it, but ended up using ear plugs instead. Just my luck.

The Prairie Dog Incident

     In early August, we had driven all over the park. We drove the entire Grand Loop, which I believe is around 140 miles, and there's a lot to see so it took a few days to get through. Coty works Wednesday through Saturday, so we have three days to mess around and go where ever. We got back one evening from driving through Hayden Valley, which is where the Buffalo mate in their August Rut. We parked the car, and Coty only drove it to and from work, which is maybe a half mile up the road. I noticed prior to leaving to drive the Grand Loop that weekend, Coty had came home and after he shut the car off, something under the hood squeaked. I thought nothing of it until the next Saturday Coty got off work, I heard it squeak again. He didn't believe me that the car was making a noise, because apparently I give off that "nutsy koo koo" vibe. Anyway, my dog Tank was freaking out at the car. He was trying to crawl under it, he was attempting to scratch at my bumper and as he did so, the squeak got louder. I trust my dogs nose and ears over mine any day, but if he heard it then I definitely wasn't crazy.
     As we opened the hood, we looked down in to the bumper of my car and saw nothing. I was trying to think where something could hide in my bumper if it were small. I have an air horn that my Dad and I installed a few years ago that I've replaced probably 3 times since, and there's a decent pocket down in there. As I looked at a different angle, something was staring back at me and did it's squeaking noise, which also happened to sound like a loose drive belt on a vehicle, except the car was off.
     It was a Prairie Dog living in my bumper, and it was pissed off. It wouldn't come out, not with Tank freaking it out or us poking at it. Finally we found a metal rod type thing that was about two feet long and skinny, so Coty shoved it down in there and whacked it on the head. He didn't hit it hard, just enough for it to get the hell out of my bumper. It jumped out and ran out the back of my car in which case our neighbor, Dan, was sitting outside drinking beer. That P-Dog (or P-Dog-like animal) ran straight for Dan and got within a foot of him, in which case Dan began to flail (yes, I mean FLAIL) his arms and legs like a crazy person, never losing a drop of beer. That P-Dog was gunning for him, and at the last second it went around him and under his trailer, never to be seen again.
     Luckily it didn't eat through any wires, or make a nest, but that P-Dog drove ALL over the Grand Loop with us, and lived in my car for a week. Coty thinks he picked him up at his work up the road because he saw one of those little creatures hanging out by my car.
     Needless to say for about a month after that incident, Tank checked every bumper on every car we came across. He still looks under my car now and then, and has ever since become Squirrel crazy.