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.