A Simple Trip to the Post Office
I just went for the mail. Literally, I just went to the post office, and out of that entry into Mammoth Hot Springs came one of the craziest wildlife encounters I’ve ever had in my two and a half decades of living and working in Yellowstone. All that time as a guide, an artist, an educator—this experience is definitely one of the top tiers of the cake.
I went to the post office. Like the post office usually is, there was nothing in the box but junk mail, some postcards. What was really cool, though, was what was lying in the grass between the post office and the visitor center. It was a huge, huge bull elk and his harem of thirty to forty females. They were just lying out there in this most sublime setting.
So I said, this is it. This is my space, my happy place. I parked right next to a cottonwood tree, a safe distance from the elk, of course, and sat there just enjoying the morning light sifting through the golden leaves of that September cottonwood above me. And this bull was asleep, or kind of asleep.
Because he’d been up all night. It was the rut—he’d been busy all night long. As I sat there, his eyes were closed, and he was breathing, rocking back and forth with each breath. Almost like dragon breath. I started breathing with him just to feel some semblance of what it’s like to breathe through lungs that size.
His eyes were twitching with REM sleep, and those giant antlers were drooping, his head twisting down toward the earth. It was a beautiful, enormously settling scene.
But it wasn’t going to last.
Living with Wildlife Rhythms
We get to live with wildlife in close proximity, living in Gardiner or in Yellowstone. And it’s not always easy. You have these transcendent moments, and then you have moments where you think, oh my gosh, this is the worst thing ever.
Like that poor nest full of baby birds that suddenly becomes lumps in the belly of a bull snake. It’s brutal out there. But we live by these rhythms. Our family lives by this rhythm. It affects the way we walk out the door, so we don’t scare the cottontail rabbit just past the fence. We walk in different places in winter because the deer are wintering there, and we want them to be able to stay. We walk around other places when the elk are calving, because we know—my wife especially knows—they’ll chase you really intently if you don’t get the heck out of there fast.
But we don’t do these things and make these concessions because we have to. There are no rules. We do it because these creatures have taught us so much. I’ve learned so much from the mule deer. I’ve learned so much from the magpies. It has become an act of reverence.
Enter Bull Elk Number Six
Back to the elk in Mammoth. It wasn’t just any bull elk. This was Bull Elk Number Six, and some of you know him. He was this incredible, top-of-the-heap, enormous bull elk. Huge, wide-sweeping antlers that turned up into over a dozen ivory-tipped daggers.
And on that morning, he was chill. He was cool. It had been a long night. The cows were sitting there, chewing their cud. It was so serene.
That is, until a little man with a little camera came off the back steps of the visitor center. He didn’t walk—he crept toward the elk. He got within ten yards, way inside the park’s 25-yard limit. He clicked, with one of those old disposable point-and-shoot cameras, and ran back to the steps.
The cows jumped up and started going nuts. The bull snapped out of his sleep and went berserk. You could see it in his eyes—the whites showing, his nostrils flaring wide. He had that look: I’m going to do something crazy here.
And he started running toward me. Not the guy who did it.
I barely had time to jump in the truck before he flew past me, between my vehicle and the one parked next to me. Inches away. The sheer power of him filling the window for just a fraction of a second.
The Chaos Unfolds
He rounded up all his girls. He brought them back. He settled for a moment.
And then the little man with the little camera came back down the steps. Same thing. Click. Cows scatter. Bull Six goes wild.
I didn’t even have time to get in the truck this time—I jumped on top of it. Mayhem. The bull swung around through the parked cars, looking for somebody to beat up.
The little man had vanished. But parked nearby was a red Subaru Forester.
Bull Six lined up and hit it. He smashed the rear passenger side door so hard the vehicle rocked back and forth. He backed up and hit the front passenger side door.
A friend of mine from the Park Service, a biologist, was standing next to me. He asked, “Dude, is there anybody in that car?”
I said, “I don’t know. I’ve been here a while, and I haven’t seen anybody get in or out.”
And in that instant, the car started up and drove away. So yes, there was.
A Bull with Personality
Then things mellowed enough for a conversation. That’s one of the neat things about living close to wildlife—you get to know their personalities.
My friend said, “I think of Bull Number Ten,” Six’s rival at the time, “as the sophisticated tweed-jacket, leather-elbow-patches kind of guy.”
You could imagine him saying to the cows, Darling, I love those shining hooves, those velvet ears, that mask you’re wearing. It’s just bewitching. How about we share a glass of sherry and get to know each other?
Whereas Bull Number Six was the raging frat boy in a ripped tank top, just finished a keg stand, yelling, “Woo! Let’s get the rut on!”
The Final Blow
By this time, more people had gathered. A Park Service worker was even handing the Subaru driver an affidavit for the insurance company.
And then—for the third time—the little man with the little camera came off the porch.
He set it all off again. Cows running everywhere, through the cars, around the administration building, past the visitor center. Bull Six’s fire was lit. He was tearing around.
The Subaru was gone, but in its place was a maroon minivan. The people inside were screaming. The driver gunned it—but the car was still in park.
Boom! The bull drove a dagger tine straight through the rear driver’s side window. Glass popped and cascaded all over the people inside. Their screams burst outward.
The bull was covered in glass. He backed up, shaking shards from his neck and face. And then it was over. His love life shattered, done.
That season alone, I watched him gore and attack more than seventy vehicles. It got so bad they tranquilized him and cut his antlers off. Twice. And who got punished? Not the little man with the little camera. It was Bull Six. Or the grizzly. Or the buffalo. Over and over, you see that story play out.
The Lesson of Bull Six
These times distilled for me why it’s so important to have wild places. We need them to calibrate what normal actually is.
These creatures have taught me so much. Like watching the wolves—you learn how to be a good parent. Watching the bison—you learn how to be a good steward of the next generation. These animals are better than us in so many ways. They can smell things, hear things in the distance. I don’t even notice something until I see an elk’s head turn.
It’s not about getting the photos. It’s not even about completing a sculpture. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The more substantial part is the relationship. The lessons. The things we take home that help us look at our own bad day and think: well, compared to Bull Elk Six’s, mine is still pretty good.
So get out there. You have to get out there. It is always worth it, even if it’s ten minutes.
But whatever you do, don’t—and I repeat, don’t—be the little man with the little camera.
Interested in more stories about bull elk in Yellowstone? Check out Sights & Sounds of the Elk Rut, Sounds of the Elk Rut in Mammoth Hot Springs, and Secrets of the Elk Wallow.
