Back online

My blogging resumes today after a 10 day hiatus. We left on a last-minute vacation to our cabin in Wyoming where the internet access was almost non-existent. Back home for a day, then off to New Jersey on Saturday for the State Geologists annual meeting that began in earnest on Sunday.

There is a lot to blog about and a lot is happening here at the AASG meeting. I'll be cross-posting some topics at the new State Geologists blog (stategeologists.blogspot.com).

We arrived at the cabin a week ago Saturday, just hours after the Forest Service had tracked and killed the grizzly bear that fatally mauled our cabin neighbor Erwin "Erv" Evert two days earlier.

Apparently the USGS had trapped and tagged the bear just a few hours before Erv ran into it on the trail. Speculation among the canyon cabin owners is that the bear was disoriented and perhaps agitated following its trapping. We also heard that this bear was not one of the 'problem' bears that are relocated from elsewhere in the Yellowstone region.

The Forest Service re-opened the area to the public, including the trail rides that are popular with Yellowstone tourists. So, while life appears to be back to normal on the surface, questions linger about what happened and why.