The Magazine of The Sierra Club
Where the Wild Things Are
Sierra club outings leaders show you where to meet musk oxen, alligators, whales, puffins, and more
Maybe you were lucky enough to spot a bald eagle or a bobcat. Or maybe it was just a garter snake shimmying across the trail or a heron stalking a swamp for fish. It may have been a rustle in the underbrush, a splash in the water, a warning call, that stopped you in mid-stride, your skin prickling with curiosity. Perhaps you heard it from your tent at night: the low croon of the owl, the brazen foraging of the bear, the screech and cackle of arguing raccoons. Whatever it was, chances are that the moment you encountered one of the earth's wild creatures, everything else stopped. The human drama lost its grip on your attention and you lived in your senses, eager to know more.
We asked eight Sierra Club Outings leaders to tell us where they go to get to know the other species of our planet. They told us about places as remote as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska, and as accessible as Everglades National Park, just an hour from Miami. Some can be visited on foot; others require boats, bicycles, or even skis. But all are places where wild creatures gather and where you stand a good chance of meeting them. Bring a soft voice, a quiet tread, a keen eye, and a patient heart. And prepare to be amazed.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska
On all the planet, it would be hard to find a more remote and wild place than the 19.6 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There are no buildings here, no roads, and no trails — just a vast, unbroken expanse of mountains, coastal plain, and boreal forest.
"You can imagine yourself having been dropped into a time machine and going back a few centuries to when Europeans were just starting to explore the North American continent," says outings leader Drew McCalley, who visited the refuge on a Sierra Club trip in 1993 and has been back nine times.
On that first trip, McCalley watched from 200 feet away as a wolf stalked a herd of caribou. Other times, he's seen a wolverine swim across a tundra pond, watched a fox with an egg in its mouth being chased by an outraged gull, and had his camp approached by a curious grizzly. "They're big," he says of the brown bears. "And you can see everywhere how strong they are. They rip up yards of tundra going after the arctic ground squirrel."
LOGISTICS: Most of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is accessible only by chartered bush plane, and it is both impractical and unwise to visit without an experienced guide. McCalley leads a Sierra Club trip each June, the optimal time for viewing wildflowers — and for avoiding storms and bugs.
Everglades National Park, Florida
"In the Everglades," environmental advocate Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote, "one is most aware of the superb monotony of saw grass under the world of air. But below that and before it, enclosing and causing it, is the water."
Within Everglades National Park, there are many distinct worlds, each defined by water — freshwater sloughs, mangrove forests, coastal prairies, hardwood hammocks, and saltwater bays. Fifteen endangered species live in the park, including the shy Florida panther. If you walk or paddle through its landscapes, you may see alligators and crocodiles and a wide variety of birds — even, if you're lucky, the endangered wood stork, the Everglades kite, and the purple gallinule.
For many years, Vivian Spielbichler led dozens of canoe trips through the Everglades with her husband, Otto, and she's had some exciting encounters — dolphins diving under her canoe, an enormous alligator strolling through a campground on its way to the water. "You certainly get a good look at an alligator when it's walking," she dryly observes.
LOGISTICS: Spielbichler recommends going in January or February — otherwise, she says, "the mosquitoes will carry you away." The wooden boardwalks of the Anhinga Trail by the Royal Palm Visitor Center make a good jaunt for wildlife viewing. For more ambitious adventurers, she recommends paddling Nine Mile Pond Loop and the other Flamingo area canoe trails.
You can find maps, canoes, and kayaks at the Flamingo and Gulf Coast Visitor Centers. Cyclists can pedal 15 miles along the Shark Valley Tram Road or 22 miles on Old Ingraham Highway.
Maui, Hawaii
There's much to like about humpback whales — they're big, smart, playful, and they sing. But even an ardent humpback-lover like Lynne Simpson has to admit that the marine mammals have a flaw.
All the same, getting close enough to a cetacean to complain about its odor is a pretty thrilling experience. Simpson co-leads service trips in Maui each winter that include several excursions with a naturalist. Upon sighting a whale, her group cuts the engine on their Zodiac raft and waits for the sociable creatures to approach.
Sometimes the whales will "mug" the boat, gently pushing it with their snouts, or dive underneath and come up on the other side to show their bellies. The sound of one surfacing nearby with a loud exhale, Simpson says, is one you don't forget. "Just to feel the proximity of these creatures by their breath — it touches your soul."
LOGISTICS: Humpbacks visit Hawaii from late October to May or June. The Pacific Whale Foundation leads whale-watching outings, and uses the profits to fund its research and advocacy programs.
Acadia National Park, Maine
Acadia's Mount Desert Island was once the playground of wealthy industrialists like the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Fords. Few of the mansions they called "cottages" survived, but the landscape has — and its granite mountains, cobble beaches, spruce forests, and bogs and marshes make a birder's paradise.
The 47,000 acres of Acadia National Park harbor 227 types of birds — more than half the species found in Maine — including 23 kinds of nesting warblers. In spring and summer, the woodlands sparkle with songbirds, while winter brings northern species like the boreal chickadee. Eagles, ospreys, and peregrine falcons all breed here.
But none of these is as charming as the Atlantic puffin, which nests on nearby Petit Manan Island. Almost extirpated by hunting in the United States, the clown-faced bird was reintroduced to Maine in 1973 and is now breeding successfully. While they are common in Newfoundland and points north, Maine is the only place they breed in the United States. You can spy them from a sea kayak or by taking a puffin cruise from nearby Bar Harbor. "They're such comical-looking birds," says Craig Caldwell, who leads trips here nearly every year, "and a conservation success story."
LOGISTICS: From mid-June to mid-October, a free shuttle bus from Bar Harbor serves most of Acadia's trailheads and campgrounds. Early fall has fair weather and fewer bugs, and the summer crowds are gone. There are 120 miles of hiking trails, and 45 miles of rustic carriage roads are well-suited for cycling and cross-country skiing.
Olympic National Park, Washington
Ninety-five percent of Olympic National Park is wilderness — old-growth and temperate rainforests, subalpine lakes, salmon streams, glacier-capped peaks, and the largest stretch of wild coastline in the Lower 48.
The animals that live here are often as surprised to see you as you are to see them. "It's a great place to watch bears grazing on wild blueberries," says Ann Daigle, who leads Sierra Club backpacking trips through the park. "They are not accustomed to people, so they mind their business and you mind yours."
Because the Olympic Peninsula was cut off from the mainland by glaciers for thousands of years, the park boasts 15 unique animal species. Here you'll find the Olympic marmot, a creature that looks a bit like a tailless beaver and lives in colonies like prairie dogs. Aficionados consider Olympic to be the best marmot-viewing spot in the nation. "They're big and furry and curious," Daigle says. "As you're hiking, they'll let out a squeal to warn each other. If you stop, they'll come look at you."
LOGISTICS: Cross Puget Sound from Seattle by ferry and you can reach the park in two and a half hours. The best times for hiking any of its 600 miles of trails are between June and October, but you can snowshoe and cross-country ski in the winter. Hurricane Ridge is the place to see marmots; if you're in the mood for bear and elk, try the Hoh Lake Trail. Backpackers can go coastal by heading south from Lake Ozette — keep your eyes peeled for whales, seals, seabirds, and Cape Alava, the westernmost point in the contiguous United States.
For a forest trip, start with the verdant, mossy Hoh rainforest. More information, including trail conditions and tips on when and where to find spawning salmon, is offered at www.nps.gov/olym.
Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
For most of the year, the animals in Yellowstone are spread out over the park's 2.2 million acres, doing their best to avoid the nearly 3 million annual human visitors. But in the winter, when the tourist population thins out, the animals (at least the ones that aren't hibernating) cluster near Yellowstone's meadows and thermal springs.
Every February, outings leader Rob White guides a group of cross-country skiers into the park, accompanied by wildlife biologist and tracker Jim Halfpenny. The skiers usually spend three days at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and three days at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, traveling between the two in a modified van called a snow coach. In five years they have never failed to see wolves. "One year a group of wolves had just brought down an elk," he recalls. "Last year, we witnessed two packs challenging each other — howling, running from one clump of trees to another."
LOGISTICS: You can make arrangements to stay at Yellowstone's two winter lodges by calling (307) 344-7311. For more general information about a winter stay in Yellowstone, visit www.nps.gov/yell/planvisit/winteruse.
Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas
When the Spanish first came to Texas in the 1500s, the Lower Rio Grande Valley was a green oasis of dense, scrublike thorn forest and grassland. No more: Agriculture and cattle-grazing have transformed much of the area into a virtual desert, and the land is scarred with highways and oilfields. But pockets of the original ecosystem have been preserved in a series of wildlife refuges that are famous among birders for their remarkable array of tropical and subtropical species.
"You can see birds down here that you won't see anyplace else in the United States," says John O'Donnell, who leads birding trips to the region. In spring it's not uncommon to log 200 species in a week, among them the world's tiniest owl, the elf owl. You might even glimpse one of the area's rare ocelots. O'Donnell once watched one stalking a chachalaca, a south Texas twofer.
While he has never seen a cougar or jaguarundi, he has spotted their tracks. The area is also home to half of all butterfly species found in the United States. "Very few people go there besides birdwatchers and naturalists," says O'Donnell. "Most people don't think of Texas as a place to see wildlife."
LOGISTICS: The region's largest swath of wilderness is the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Rio Hondo. O'Donnell also recommends the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge seven miles south of Alamo, and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission, home of the World Birding Center. Read more about the two refuges at http://southwest.fws.gov/refuges/txrefuges.html. The best time for birding is mid-March to late April.
Isle Royale National Park, Michigan
During the particularly cold winter of 1948-49, Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world, froze over. A female wolf walked across the ice and took up residence on Isle Royale, a 45-mile-long and 9-mile-wide wilderness normally two hours by boat from the nearest land. From that one crossing, three packs of wolves have evolved.
They prey on the island's moose, and the relationship between the two species has been the subject of 45 years of research, the longest-running predator-prey study ever. While the wolves are elusive, you may see their tracks or even hear them howl. You are almost guaranteed to see moose, which congregate near the harbor.
The island has no cars and under 20,000 visitors a year, so you can expect to have plenty of peace and quiet. In addition to enjoying the 165 miles of hiking trails, visitors who don't mind a little portaging might want to paddle a canoe or kayak on the inland lakes, many of which have their own campsites. Make sure not to go to bed too early, though. The northern lights are sometimes visible here, and the night sky is creamy with constellations.
"You've never seen stars in the sky until you've been 70 miles from city lights," says Mike Garr, who leads frequent Sierra Club service trips to the island, including one in August. "It's just a canopy of stars."
LOGISTICS: Ferries travel to Isle Royale from Houghton and Copper Harbor, Michigan, and from Grand Portage, Minnesota, a two- to six-hour trip depending on the weather and the departure point. There are 36 campgrounds on the island, as well as Rock Harbor Lodge, which offers both rooms and cabins. A concessionaire rents canoes and kayaks.
The peak visiting time is late summer, but Garr recommends early fall, when both the human and insect populations are lower.
