Day 23, Close Encounters of an Uncomfortable Kind

We started out our day pretty early. We were hoping to avoid many of the motorcycles on the road and one of the park rangers told us that the best time to see wildlife would be before 8:00 a.m. We were successful on both counts.

The Wildlife Loop makes a huge loop in the southeastern part of Custer State Park. We were on the loop before 7:00 a.m. It wasn't long before we saw the first few deer. Shortly after that we encountered the bison.

Custer State Park tries to keep the bison population to around 1400 since they survive strictly on the grasses of the park. The park does not supplement their diet. Instead, they control the number of bison by selling off some in September of each year. I'm not sure how many we saw this morning, but it was certainly more than 100 crossing from one side of the road to the other.

We were told that there was a short, gravel loop that went around in area called Buffalo Corrals where you could almost always see bison. We drove along and saw some bison. Since there was no one else coming either way on the road, we decided to hang for a while. We were able to watch a calf feeding from its mom, two juvenile bisons butting heads, an older male bison pawing at the ground. While we were watching, we weren't paying attention to the bison on the right. By the time it became impossible to move, they were coming right at us. The Park Service warns about approaching bison but doesn't say what to do when they decide to approach you. Luckily, I got my window closed in time. One of the bison came right up to the window and knocked on it with his horns. A few other of the bison decided that maybe they'd butt up against the car. There was no damage to the car but it did provide a bit of excitement to our morning.

We saw lots of other wildlife on our early morning tour: squirrels and chipmunks scampering, a lone turkey hanging out, prairie dogs sitting atop mounds of red earth homes, and a herd of 15 pronghorn. Pretty much all before 9:00.

Still, were hoping to see elk. We took another road of the main drag. We were too late to see elk but did take a short hike and visited the home of Badger Clark, the cowboy poet. Even though the trail was short, there were lots of Interpretive signs and it was pretty, especially since the trail itself has lots of mica and sparkled in the sun.

I had two hopes for the early afternoon. I could straighten and clean up around the pod and that Denis would get some relaxation time. Unfortunately, when he went to put out the awning, it didn't want to budge. That meant he spent time trying to diagnose and (unsuccessfully) fix it, leaving me plenty of time to straighten and clean.

We took another short hike before dinner near the lake that is close to the campground.

We still wanted to see elk. We ended the day driving to the spot we were told they are most likely to be seen at dusk. We drove back and forth and were rewarded with seeing many deer, including a spotty fawn and a few bucks with antlers. But, no elk. We considered the deer sightings as a win and headed back to the campsite.

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