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Another below freezing night was curtailed by warm glowing sun striking through the trees, with instant coffee and porridge (separately obviously). Today was! an early morning as we were driving the furthest away from the campsite we'd been yet. We were heading to Lamar Valley in the far northeast of the park, past the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, off the Grand Loop Road and near Cooke City just past the Northeast Entrance in Montana. It's called a city but actually the population is only 140. People, not thousand. According to the United States Census Bureau, Cooke City has only 10.0 square miles of land, 79 houses and 27 families. I'm not quite sure in what capacity it is a city but there you have it.

Once you've reached the Grand Canyon area, you start to leave the relatively flat Hayden Valley and climb upwards. The road winds its way up and down steep hills and deep valleys (very different from the dale-style valley of Hayden and Lamar). At one point there was a roadside pull-out overlooking a forested valley, and we pulled over for a short break to take in the incredible view. When the road finally came down from the gorge-ous (geddit?) hills, we turned east onto U.S. Route 212, known as the Northeast Entrance Road inside the Park, which only counts for 35 or so miles of its mountainous 950 overall from Wyoming through Montana and South Dakota to Minnesota.

The park sits on the Yellowstone Plateau, at an average elevation of 2,400m (8,000 ft) above sea level. The plateau is bound on nearly all sides by various sub-mountain ranges of the Middle Rocky Mountains including the Gallatin Range to the northwest, the Beartooth Mountains in the north, the Absaroka Range to the east, and the Teton Range and the Madison Range to the southwest and west, all of which range from 2,700 m (9,000 ft) to 3,400 m (11,000 ft) in elevation. The highest point in the park itself is Eagle Peak (3,462 m/11,358 ft) and the lowest is along Reese Creek (1,610 m/5,282 ft).

Arguably the most prominent summit on the Yellowstone Plateau is Mount Washburn at 3,122 m (10,243 ft), which we drove past on the way to Lamar Valley. The Washburn Range is one of two mountain ranges that is completely confined within the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park, and was first conquered in 1870. As the Washburn Mountains faded behind us, the large flat Lamar Valley sprawled out on front of us, nicely bordered by the Absaroka Mountains in the distance, named after the Absaroka Indians. Absaroka means 'Children of the Large-beaked Bird", or more simply translated to the Crow People. The Absarokas are a Sioux tribe of Native Americans who historically lived in what is now Yellowstone Park.

Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years and prehistoric artifacts have been found all over the park. Some accounts state that the early people used hot water from the geothermal features for bathing and cooking. In the 19th century it was reported that natives being interviewed thought that the geyser eruptions were "the result of combat between the infernal spirits." Local natives that early expeditioners came across seldom dared to enter the caldera because the loud noises sounded like spirits that possessed the area who did not like human intrusion into their realm.

We carried on just past the open valley plain of Lamar Valley, and drove into the Absaroka Mountains for a hike on the Pebble Creek trail half way up the Barronette Peak. We parked the car at the Pebble Creek trailhead and walked into the thick mosquito forest for a few miles before starting a 150m (500ft) ascent of switchbacks to a small meadow overlooking Lamar Valley to the south. We didn't do the whole trail as there weren't enough hours in the day, so we rested here and took in the spectacular views of Druid Peak to the southwest and The Thunderer to the southeast with trail mix and Goober sammiches for lunch .

Druid Peak is an imposing dome that rises 2,900m (9,600ft) into the sky, and was named so in 1885 for reasons unknown, although the presence of Stonehengesque rock formations on on its eastern face may give a clue. In 1995 and 1996 Druid Peak was the site where two wolf packs were reintroduced into Yellowstone, named the Rose Creek Pack and Druid Pack respectively. The Thunderer, despite being just a high ridge extending north from Mount Norris has garnered more notoriety than Norris for its tendency to attract thunderstorms to its 3,200m (10,500ft) self.

The trail continues to parallel Pebble Creek north through the forest above towards Barronette Peak but we doubled back on ourselves and descended back down the hillside to the car a couple of hours away. As it is bear country the best trick you can do to avoid them is to constantly talk and make noises. It was to be a day of country hiking and after 20 minutes in the car we'd driven back down the NE Entrance Road, passed Soda Butte, a bizarre rock formation by the side of the road that I guess used to be some sort of bubbling geyser but is now quite defunct, and parked up again for a trek across the glen of Lamar Valley.

Sometimes referred to as the American Serengeti (I don't know by whom though), Lamar Valley is supposedly one of the best places in Yellowstone after Hayden Valley to spot wildlife. The sun was shining in the blue sky, the grass was swaying in the gentle breeze, and the animals were all hiding in the mountains. We made it all the way to the end of the trail without spotting a single creature. The hike finishes at the the Lamar River, where we chilled out for a while sitting on the rocks in the cool water. On the way back we were pretty stoked when we spotted some animals grazing in the distance. At first we dismissed them as more deer or elk, of which we'd already seen plenty, but on further inspection they turned out to be distinctly antelope looking.

Indeed they were Pronghorn Antelope. Well, actually, Mr. Internet has informed me that they aren't actually antelope at all and are in fact an entirely different species of even-toed ungulate or artiodactyl called simply Pronghorn. They do look a lot like antelope though and have beautiful markings. It was fascinating to observe them from behind a grassy knoll, assassination style, and they watched us watching them for a while, trying to decide whether we were a threat or not. They evolved to outrun a now extinct North American Cheetah, and so at 60mph are the fastest antelope (but not really) on Earth. Beacuse they're are so small and nimble, they have the longest migration away from the park in the winter, over 100 miles, the longest of any mammal in North America, to escape the extreme cold of the plateau, unlike the bison who are so heavy set they can just about stand it. They have done this every year since the last ice age.

We eventually made it back to the car, extremely satisfied with our last minute wildlife spot, and proceeded to drive back to camp for a well earned dinner.

Known as the Secluded Valley when it was first explored by the trapper Osborne Russell in 1834, the Lamar was later renamed in the late 1880s in honour of some politician. Russell, in his 1921 Journal of a Trapper, described the vale, rather beautifully:

"28th of July 1834: We crossed the mountain in a westerly direction through the thick pines and fallen timber, about twelve miles, and encamped in a small prairie about a mile in circumference. Through this valley ran a small stream in a northerly direction, which all agreed in believing to be a branch of the Yellowstone.

29th: We descended the stream about fifteen miles through the dense forest and at length came to a beautiful valley about eight miles long and three or four wide, surrounded by dark and lofty mountains. The stream, after running through the centre in a northwesterly direction, rushed down a tremendous canyon of basaltic rock apparently just wide enough

Bison, Hayden Valley

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R&C Photos Inc.

to admit its waters. The banks of the stream in the valley were low and skirted in many places with beautiful cottonwood groves. Here we found a few Snake Indians comprising six men, seven women and eight or ten children, who were the only inhabitants of the lonely and secluded spot."

Native Americans didn't exactly have an easy time of it when the European-Americans first rode into town during their Westward Expansion, and I always felt a little uneasy about their being portrayed invariably as the bad guys in Westerns. Their nomadic way of life, dictated by the migrations of buffalo and elk, didn't really sit well with the European concept of private property and land ownership. When gold was discovered in Montana in the 1860s the main access route to the gold fields was along the Yellowstone River. The Yellowstone had been a transportation artery for Native American tribes such as the Lakota, Sioux, Crow and Cheyenne for centuries. The tribes were inevitably moved into other areas and forcibly made to hunt in reservations.

As time went on their allowed hunting grounds got smaller and smaller again, and Native American resentment eventually fuelled Red Cloud's War from 1866 to 1868. Red Cloud was a Sioux chief of the Oglala Lakota tribe who led his men to victory over the US Army. At the end of the war the US granted certain regions where the natives could hunt in peace with minimal disturbance to the burgeoning gold mining industry. However in 1874, gold was discovered within this granted territory and more conflicts ensued. Despite the miners violating the treaty, the US sent troops to defend them in the Great Sioux War from 1876 to 1877. The Indians won many battles but eventually the US forced the tribes onto smaller reservations. In the decades after the war, the US created more reservations south of Yellowstone, and by the early 20th century, all Native territory within Yellowstone had disappeared.

On the drive back we encountered many more buffalo, and eventually got held up in a traffic jam owing to a herd taking their time crossing the road. A jerk in a big yellow off-roader who seemed to forget he was in a nature reserve and not on the motorway eventually grew impatient of waiting for the bison and started honking his horn and driving straight towards them. One nearly hit our car from behind. I'm not sure if you've ever been around scared buffalo, but somehow a car doesn't seem like much protection from a herd of North America's largest beast running in fear. Luckily no one was hurt, but what a douche!

By the time we got to Hayden Valley we noticed lots of cars pulled up at the side of the road. Everyone was looking intently into the distance but we couldn't quite make out what it was they were looking at. Someone told us it was a Grizzly and her cubs, but unfortunately they were just too far away to make out. We did manage to see a tiny black blob slowly meandering in the far side of the valley near the edge of the forest, with even smaller black blobs occasionally moving next to it. I suppose from a distance is probably most people's preferred way to see Grizzly Bears.

It looked like she had three cubs, and while it is unusual to have more than two it's also not unheard of for mothers to adopt orphan cubs. There are two types of bear in Yellowstone, the Grizzly and the Brown Bear, although technically the Grizzly is a subspecies of the Brown. Generally the Grizzlies are smaller and black, with the Browns being bigger and, well, brown, although you can't always distinguish the two this way because both are known to be varying sizes and colours. The easiest way to differentiate them is the hump on the Brown's back and its longer nose. If you're attacked by a Grizzly or Brown Bear, the best thing to do, if they're merely curious, is to play dead. Grizzlies can't climb trees very well so if their attack is predatory then you can either climb a tree or fight back. You may not have much of a chance but in the absence of a rifle a fist to the face is probably all you can do. Howcast made this video to help you to survive a bear attack [:O]. Luckily there are only a few bear fatalities a decade in America, and none in Yellowstone since the 1980s.

The pictures that either Clare or I took are labelled R&C. The pictures that either Seth or Melinda took are labelled M&S.

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