Grebe Lake in Yellowstone, A Cautionary Tale

There was a time when I was all about fly fishing, particularly in Yellowstone National Park. In the late 1980s you could book a room in West Yellowstone on short notice, and drive into the park with no delay at the entrance.  I was hooked after my first visit and soon found that I preferred to go alone rather than compromise my stay with others. But that led to a chilling experience.

In much of the park you can walk 100 yards from a parking lot and feel that you are in an unexplored wilderness.  Not many visitors were in the park in September in those days, and it was worth paying attention to your surroundings. In Grebe Lake, 3 miles in from the trailhead, Arctic Grayling had once been stocked, one of only a few places they were found in the lower 48 states. On the easy hike to the lake I counted numbers out loud to keep from surprising a grizzly bear. (Highly recommended.) One thousand is a lot of numbers to repeat, but it was a layer of security.

Grebe Lake was one of the few places I have had the pleasure to experience absolute quiet. A Raven did not just call, the sound pierced the air, clean and clear and it lingered. The lap of water at the edge of the lake was distinct, I didn’t have to try to hear it.

My goal for this trip was to reach the outlet to the Gibbon River, about ¾ of a mile around the lake. No sooner had I started to walk than I was shaken by the sudden movement of something very large to my left.  My first thought was grizzly, but an immense bull moose had been lying unseen, not 50 feet away. This enormous, humped creature rose, staring at me with eyes too small for its large equine head, supporting wide plates of massive antlers. I was frozen in fear. There would have been nowhere to go if 2,000 lbs. of muscle and bone had perceived me as a threat. I have always felt in that still world I could audibly hear my thumping heart from that near encounter.

The rest of the way around the lake was without incident, but my goal proved to be an impenetrable soggy marsh, and my fright had extinguished my interest in fishing for that day. I turned to retrace my steps. But on the other side of the lake, knee deep in the water near the trail, were now two bull moose, vying over the rights to a cow standing between them. It was September, the rutting season, and I was trapped, uncomfortably alone and vulnerable to these huge, excited animals. All I could do was watch this fascinating display of aggression by these bulls until, as quickly as it started, it was all over, and each went its own way. Timidly, and with a fluttering gut, I made it to the trail, so rattled I forgot to signal my presence to any bear as I hurried back to the parking area. It seemed to take forever to feel safe once again. Grizzlies, rutting moose, Yellowstone is not my backyard. The experience taught me a new lesson of respect for our place on this planet of dwindling wild lands.

Later that week I was standing in the Firehole River fishing a nice riffle when I noticed a migrant thrush on a riparian shrub. I couldn’t pick out the species at that distance, so I returned to the riverbank, laid down my rod, and picked up my binoculars - for the rest of the trip.