One Nation, Under God

It is summer in Yellowstone

You know it’s summer in Yellowstone Park when the bison start goring the visitors.

A 30-year-old woman suffered what the park is calling “significant” injuries recently following an “encounter” with a bison on a hiking trail near Yellowstone Lake.

It’s a relatively common occurrence. Last summer in separate encounters with bison in the park a 72-year-old woman was gored, another woman was knocked to the ground, and a nine-year-old girl was tossed in the air.

All were injured but survived. Fatalities are rare, however, bison injure more visitors to the park than any other animal.

I’ve been dodging bison in Yellowstone for years. It seems they’re always in the way of where I want to go. During my annual fishing trip to the park I’ve come to expect detours, surrendering the trail when there’s a herd blocking it.

But it’s the buffalo I don’t see that concern me the most. Out in the open on the sagebrush flats they’re easy to avoid. In the timber not so much.

There’s a stretch of trail in the Yellowstone River canyon that winds through a stand of young pine trees growing thick as dog hair. It’s the trail I follow on my way out of the canyon at the end of the day, hot, tired, and thirsty.

Although the dusty ground is covered with tracks, including those of bison, I’ve never seen one on that trail. If I did, there would be little room to avoid an “encounter.”

The trees are too small to hide behind, but have grown too thick to provide an escape off the trail.

I’ve always hoped that if I did run into a bison there it would at least be heading away from me.

I’ve been startled by bison when I’ve stumbled upon them at close quarters, but the fear has always been that the big brown critter is a bear, not a buffalo, even though there’s a better chance they’ll poke a hole in me than a bear will.

My trip to the park is still weeks away and I hope by then the bison in Yellowstone will have wearied of goring tourists.

I can only hope.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]

 

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