Summer Yellowstone

For six months, Yellowstone endures an unrelenting winter.

An ice world of hunters...

..and hunted.

But now footsteps on the slopes of a mountain

herald a change in the season.

The sun regains its strength.

Water flows again.

The race begins to recover winter's losses...

to play.

Learn.

And breed.

But the summer ahead will be fleeting and far from easy...

..in this unpredictable wilderness.

It's April.

The land lies exhausted by winter.

Everything is waiting for the return of the sun's warmth.

The end of winter comes late

to the mountainous Northwest of the United States.

And in particular, it lingers in Yellowstone.

The heart of Yellowstone is a high, cold plateau 8,000 feet up,

surrounded by the spires of the Rocky mountains.

After five months sleeping in those mountains,

a powerful presence returns.

This female grizzly bear has awoken early to find food

for her two-year-old cubs.

But she may have brought her family here too early.

The Tetons.

On the extreme southern edge of the Yellowstone plateau.

It's where the spring thaw normally begins.

But this year it's come late.

Deep snow is still a novelty for her cubs.

But she is much more focused.

Led by her nose, she risks her 300 pound bulk

on the thin ice of a bend in the Snake river.

It doesn't look promising

but her cubs follow with only a little hesitation.

With paws that can knock down an elk,

she feels delicately in the water.

A fish frozen beneath the ice by this cold winter.

One fish won't feed the family but she knows

there are almost certainly more.

The cubs must learn to find them.

A little success for one of the cubs.

This mother bear's experience gives her family a good chance of survival

until spring arrives.

They will return again and again as the thaw releases more fish.

On the warmer plains and valleys that surround the plateau,

grazers are on the move.

They left the high country to avoid the worst of the winter

and now begin the long journey

towards the heart of Yellowstone in time for summer.

These elk are led by experienced adults

who have made this trip many times before.

They are followed on their migration

by the most ancient of American grazers - pronghorn.

Though predators may follow, none can outpace them.

Over distance these are the fastest animals in the world,

taking a long migration in their stride.

Migrating elk and pronghorn must follow the advancing thaw.

But higher up in the valleys, one animal is well ahead of them.

Bison are adapted for cold.

These herds need to be in Yellowstone early

to have time to bring up their young in the short summer ahead.

Calves born during the journey will be tested.

Clues to why the herds are drawn to the Yellowstone plateau

lie in its deep and unique history.

This plateau is the cratered bowl of a huge sleeping volcano

and molten rock below the surface still pushes the land up

to the cold of high altitude.

But it has not been the only force to shape the land.

Millennia ago,

the volcano was covered by an ice sheet thousands of feet deep.

The few glaciers that border Yellowstone are an echo of a time

when ice scoured and smoothed the entire plateau.

When these great ice sheets retreated,

they left pulverised rocks in their wake,

the foundation for fertile soil

and some of the richest natural grasslands in America.

But in May this year, in the heart of Yellowstone,

that grass is still beneath thick snow.

Something this ground squirrel was clearly not expecting.

But as the sun's strength returns,

spring bulbs start to push through the late snow.

At last a sign that winter is losing its grip.

Bluebirds, too delicate to survive deep winter here,

now return to take advantage of the first hatch of stoneflies

from a thawing river.

As six months of snow and ice begins to melt,

Yellowstone starts to come back to life.

Cascading snowmelt swells the streams and rivers.

It's a hazard that the migrating herds must cross.

Young are barely up to the task.

The Yellowstone River has increased its flow tenfold.

In less than two weeks,

the thaw has brought a remarkable change to the heart of Yellowstone.

As the migrating herds arrive in the plateau's river valleys,

the spring is here.

This is why they have made the journey.

After the famine of winter...

..food is everywhere.

Birds have flown in from as far away as the Arctic and subtropics,

Canada geese join flocks of white pelicans to breed here.

A snow-covered wasteland is transformed

to an American Serengeti.

But it's a landscape like no other.

Geysers make Yellowstone famous.

Yellowstone sits above the molten core of a volcano.

Underground water becomes super-heated and erupts in the air.

Strangely, geysers and hot springs can creep around the landscape.

The curious shapes of Grotto geyser are actually trees -

entombed and petrified by minerals dissolved in the water.

Hot water scorches and drowns the roots of trees

encroaching on the valleys.

It can keep the forests in check and the rich pastures open.

Those pastures now produce the new grass needed to make rich milk

and feed a bison baby boom.

The few calves born on the migration

are now joined by hundreds of new youngsters.

The predators have been waiting for this.

Coyotes have a voracious reputation here, but on its own,

this one is certainly no match for a healthy bison and her calf.

Pronghorn give birth to twins,

each carefully cleaned to hide their smell from predators.

While they are with her, they are relatively safe

and for now the coyote is content with the afterbirth.

But the mother pronghorn must leave her calves alone while she grazes

and with legs as wobbly as stilts, their best defence is to lie low.

She has young of her own to worry about -

a demanding litter of nine whose arrival has been carefully timed

to coincide with an abundance of food.

But they are not top dog here.

Yellowstone's top predator, the wolf, dominated during the winter,

but is far less visible in summer.

They prefer to stay close to well-hidden dens

to protect their pups from rival packs.

This pack seem prepared to allow their young

a brief foray to experience the world beyond their den.

Even in Yellowstone, it is extremely rare to see wolf pups like this.

Before long, they are summoned back into the forest by the pack.

It will be winter before they are regularly seen again.

As May turns to June...

Yellowstone sees its nursery season.

By early June, summer is finally here.

In the flower meadows, plants turn sunlight into the sugar of nectar -

just what Yellowstone's smallest migrating bird has been waiting for.

The Calliope hummingbird has made the journey all the way from Mexico.

He'll make this flower patch his own

and he'll fight to defend it.

He'll even take on a far larger Rufus hummingbird.

But his high-octane lifestyle

critically depends on the summer sun.

And in Yellowstone that's never guaranteed.

In the mountains surrounding the plateau,

summer has not yet arrived.

At this altitude, it is still bitterly cold.

These mountains barricade Yellowstone in a ring of ice.

And if the sun is swallowed by cloud,

the cold can drive down from the mountains,

bringing with it a punishing echo of winter.

It can snow in any month in Yellowstone.

The warm nursery meadows of a few days before

are now buried by a June blizzard.

A curtain of snow dulls senses.

This mother grizzly bear must now be especially careful.

A male grizzly will often kill cubs if he finds them.

And though she would rather sit out the storm, she must move.

Panicky cubs could easily be lost in a blizzard.

As soon as she feels it is safe,

she settles to suckle and reassure them.

Bison can shrug off this sudden change in the weather.

They are, after all, built to survive a Yellowstone winter.

But this tiny hummingbird is more vulnerable.

Flowers damaged by snow will die

and the nectar the hummingbird needs goes with them.

Hummingbirds must be resourceful to survive.

Bark wells dug by a sap sucker, a type of woodpecker,

quickly fill with sugar-rich sap as soon as the warm weather returns.

A little pilfering provides this hummingbird with the energy it needs

until the new flower buds open.

Summer moves quickly,

by late June the blizzards of a few weeks before seem a distant memory.

At last, the summer is well enough established for this hummingbird

to take the plunge and raise a brood.

The living is easy.

But it won't last long.

At this altitude, the air is so dry that rain evaporates

before it even hits the ground.

The water that flows off the plateau is no longer being replaced.

Already there is drought in forests beyond the meadows.

Yellowstone has vast ancient lava fields.

This porous volcanic rock holds onto very little water.

It is dominated by lodgepole pine,

a tree that can cope with the arid conditions.

The forest may be parched but there is still water here

in lakes formed by ancient glaciers.

A visiting male otter woos a female on the lake's shore.

But she seems a little distracted.

Her two pups are nearby.

They're about ten weeks old and the time is right

to lead them from the holt.

Males are not above stealing food from cubs,

so she makes it very clear that he is not going to be joining them.

This female grew up on the lake,

so she knows where to take the cubs for a very special trip.

Yellowstone cut-throat trout amassing in the mouth

of a stream that feeds the lake.

They are preparing for their annual spawning.

But the trout must wait.

The stream is still running fast, too turbulent to lay their eggs.

It's a nervous time for them, and for good reason.

This osprey has a brood to feed and will be back.

Now the otters are here too.

She chooses her moment to lead the pups upstream.

Then leaves them to watch and gives them a lesson in hunting.

A large trout like this, full of eggs, is a trophy catch.

She chews its tail first to make sure the fish can't get away.

While the pups are still demanding milk, the mother otter will often

keep the whole fish for herself.

Her pups are happy enough with caviar.

As the flow becomes slow enough to lay eggs,

there is a brief window of opportunity to spawn

before the river gets too shallow to swim upstream.

The female digs a trough with sinuous flicks of her body

and the attending male fertilises the eggs as they are laid.

Millions of new lives.

It's now early July

and what looks like more snow is actually

a blizzard of seeds and insects.

There is more life in the park now than at any other time of the year.

It's a turning point in the summer.

Through the coming month, the days will get hotter and drier.

The plants will grow less vigorously

and the pace of summer will slow.

The meadows are not so welcoming now.

The grass becomes less nourishing

as it puts its energy into seeds and roots.

Bison lose the last of their winter coats.

In the heat,

tempers fray.

To escape soaring ground temperatures,

cowbirds choose a bison's back

as a cool place to feed and catch the breeze.

Biting insects now become a draining nuisance.

A grizzly bear escapes the heat and bugs in the cool waters of a lake.

As the ground dries,

bears find little food to eat out on the Yellowstone plateau.

There is less to graze and digging roots is hard work,

so they start to head to the cooler mountains beyond.

In the mountains, glacier lilies that finished flowering

a month before on the plateau are only just coming into bloom.

Up here, where spring has only just arrived, bears can find food again.

As the thaw reaches up into the mountains,

a part of Yellowstone that few ever see is briefly revealed.

From its first day above the snow, this pika is obsessed by food.

It's in a frantic race to restock its winter larder

before the snow closes in again.

They're a part of a community of small mammals

which live life on the edge up here.

Carefully chosen plants are harvested

and dried in haystacks before being stored below ground.

This larder must be over 50 times the pika's bodyweight

to get it through winter.

The summer is so short up here

that few animals can permanently live any higher.

But higher is exactly where the bears are heading,

above the tree line towards the barren rocks of the peaks beyond.

It seems an unlikely journey for an animal led by its stomach.

Why they do this will only become apparent

as the summer draws to its close.

Meanwhile, 2,000 feet below them on the Yellowstone plateau,

the grasslands are facing drought.

Bison calves are more independent of their mothers.

The adults' focus is now set on a ruthless competition to mate.

A male bids to enter a herd with females in season.

He uses dust to accentuate all his size and power.

Another male already established in the herd answers the display.

And waits.

The newcomer responds by scent marking and moving even closer.

This challenge cannot be tolerated.

The resident male has won.

Having seen off his rival, next summer's calves will likely be his.

Victory in the dust of high summer.

But now there is a larger challenge to the whole of Yellowstone.

These clouds don't signal rain.

They are vast smoke plumes.

Yellowstone is burning.

Throughout the summer, the dry lodgepole pines

have become like a tinder box and lightning has struck the match.

The worst wild fires will burn for weeks.

In 1988, a third of Yellowstone burnt in a single summer.

Devastation.

Animals that depend on these forests will starve this winter.

But Yellowstone itself has a longer perspective.

Ashes fertilise the soil

and fire opens it up to sunlight.

As the forests regenerate, new life finds opportunity.

In August, fledgling hummingbirds gorge in fields of fireweed

that have risen from the forest's ashes.

For them, the summer is already nearly over.

They must chase the sun south before winter returns.

But just as the first of Yellowstone's new generation

are preparing to leave, its last visitors are arriving.

Night after night,

army cutworm moths have been escaping the heat

of the distant prairie.

They have been flying in on favourable winds,

hiding away in rock crevices in the mountains.

This is why the grizzly bears climb to the barren peaks.

Two miles up, they begin to search for the moths.

It's the end of summer

and the last snow of winter holds on only here.

It offers a few refreshing mouthfuls for travel-weary cubs.

Many of these bears learnt about this site from their mothers

as a part of local bear tradition.

The family sets to work finding moths, digging into the loose rock.

Though each moth is very small, a bear that makes a successful strike

can harvest up to 40,000 in a single day.

That's 20,000 calories and vital weight gained for winter.

Having spent all summer avoiding males,

the mother now finds one much too close for comfort.

Perhaps he's seeking a mate but he is unwelcome.

Leaving her cubs, she confronts the male head on.

As she approaches to see him off again,

she realises she has been injured.

A damaged jaw would be a disaster for her and her family.

Clearly in pain,

she leads the anxious cubs to high ground away from the male.

She nurses to calm and reassure them.

The injury does not seem serious but she decides to lead her family

back down from the mountain.

This will be the last time these cubs feed here as a family.

By next year they will be independent,

ready to face their world alone.

Sun has briefly brought warmth to Yellowstone,

long enough to fuel the raising of new generations.

But just as summer reveals the full extent of Yellowstone's diversity,

a curtain of winter ice is set to descend again.

The days are getting shorter,

the sun losing its power.

Now there are just a few short weeks to prepare for winter.

One final flourish of life in Yellowstone's briefest

but most glorious season.

Autumn.

Bringing Yellowstone's unique natural beauty to the screen

would have been impossible without the tireless help

of the local experts that know it like the back of their hand.

Each has their own story to tell.

Dancing on the surface of Yellowstone's super volcano

are more than two thirds of the world's geysers.

They are what made Yellowstone famous in the first place,

so for the Yellowstone series, they had to be filmed.

But the problem is they can be fickle - erupting in their own time.

Luckily, there is a group of people who spend their time

trying to predict the unpredictable. They are the geyser gazers.

'The radio's on, we're about nine minutes in.'

'Rocket major, 943.'

My name is Mary Beth Schwarz and I'm a geyser gazer.

I've been watching geysers for about 47 years.

It's a whole bunch of different people.

I don't want to use the word weird but it might fit.

I spend a lot of my time hiking out to some place that's not too crowded

and sit down and wait for water to boil.

I wasn't really aware of the geyser gazers till about eight years ago.

What my brother says is I fell into bad company.

I consider it really, really, really good company

and I discovered there were levels of understanding of geysers

that I had never appreciated at all.

Each geyser has its own personality, some of them are playful,

some of them are forceful, some of them thump,

you get good splashing noises out of others.

For the geyser gazers, these are much more than

just plumes of hot water, squirting from the ground.

Each geyser not only has its own personality but even its own name.

I like to see Beehive, I like to see Grand, maybe a Riverside.

Line erupts to 60, 70 feet

and you get a roar before it erupts.

Roooo. Roooo...

Geyser gazing is not just an obsession with geysers.

It does have a practical purpose.

-Nine, two nine.

-'OK, visitor centre copies.'

They have a network all over Yellowstone, connected by radio,

and they send all the eruption times to the park's visitor centre.

This way, there is a permanent record of geyser activity

and thousands of people can also experience

the thrill of watching geysers.

The geyser gazers recognise that each geyser has its own

idiosyncratic behaviour

and that helps them predict when it will erupt.

RADIOS BEEP

The Castle has not erupted yet, no Castle yet.

-'Thank you very much. '

-We're watching it.

-Intently.

Not even teasing us right now.

Well, that's good, though, you want it to be very quiet

and it'll maybe do a few practice splashes and then it erupts.

Whoo! Yahoo!

'Castle at 0955.'

That's correct, Castle at 0955.

Well, you were right, Mary Beth.

-Yes, yes.

-Quiet just before.

Supposed to be very quiet then it went. It's how it's supposed to do.

Now let's hope it's a major. That's the next landmark here.

But with geysers, nothing is certain.

Oh, come on, come on.

No, this is very bad.

-Come on, come on.

-It looks like it's finished.

-I think it's been too long.

-It's only a couple of minutes.

Visitor centre, unless Castle can restart, it appears to be a minor.

The visitor centre, we copy a minor.

Very minor.

I will post the sign as unpredictable.

That's the way it goes. Sometimes you just can't count on geysers.

The water that fuels the geysers has to travel from up to five miles

beneath the surface of the earth, so it's hardly surprising

that sometimes eruptions are late, or never make it.

All Mary Beth can do for now is predict that this geyser

is unpredictable.

The Castle is unpredictable because it's just had a minor eruption

and we have to wait for a major.

The art of predicting geysers

is about witnessing as many eruptions as you can

and key to that is spending as much time around geysers as possible.

Dick Powell is a geyser gazer and retired geologist

who has even found a whole way of life that allows him to spend

all of his time near the geysers he loves.

I'm one of three people trained to do thermal cleaning

in Yellowstone National Park.

Most of the stuff that we pick up is with what's called a grabber.

We also have some more specialised equipment,

like extension poles with slotted ladles or spoons on them.

The ground around the geysers is not only very fragile

but also very dangerous. That's why in most cases he can't step on it.

Usually we pick up some hats at various features on windy days

because people don't understand how windy it can be out here,

and they don't have them secured.

Obviously this one didn't use his chin strap to save his hat.

Occasionally he does go off the edge to the boiling pools

because rocks get thrown in.

And that's a problem because rocks can block up the throats

of the geysers and hot springs.

There's some incidences known where rocks may have been

a reason a geyser quit erupting.

As water in underground chambers is heated to

over 500 degrees Fahrenheit, it explodes

in a violent eruption of water and steam.

As soon as the chamber is emptied, it is recharged

and the process begins again.

These cycles can be once an hour, or once a decade,

so you need to put in a lot of time to work them out.

I have been out here sometimes for six hours or seven hours.

Early in the summer, when I started watching Sawmill,

I was out for ten hours, in the sun but it was doing interesting things

and I hadn't studied it before so,

I just stayed out and kept drinking water and enjoying it.

There's Turban, I'll write that down.

When Grand goes off there are actually three geysers that erupt -

Grand, Turban and Vent.

Sometimes you get just one huge series of bursts out of Grand

but just a couple of days ago, we got four bursts and people were

standing up, jumping up and down, cheering, it was so exciting.

It's like watching fireworks all day long every day, it's just that it's

hot water going up in the air and sparkling in the sunlight.

It's like handfuls of diamonds, just flying through the sky.

After a long wait, this is really worthwhile.

What's going off in the background is Grand geyser.

It's predictable with a four-hour window,

that is two hours either side of the calculated time.

Before I even knew about geyser gazers,

I'd go out and four hours to wait for this, no, I'm not gonna do that.

Then I fell in with the geyser gazers and people would say,

"You really want to stay because it's a really spectacular display."

And I discovered, hey yeah, they're right.

It's nice for humans to be able to go to a more natural area than

where they live and work, and get to see something extraordinary,

something very different from their everyday life.

I would like to see Grand erupt an infinite number of times.

When I am gone, I will be back.

If there is a beyond, I'll be back to watch the geysers.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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