by Bobby Akart
“Can you guys ride with me? I’ll tell you along the way.”
“Let’s ride,” exclaimed Dusty.
Chapter 22
Grand Loop Road
Yellowstone
“Sorry about the tight squeeze in the back. My truck is equipped like any other police car.” Jake apologized for placing Dusty and Rita in the backseat like a couple of perps. “From time to time, I have to actually arrest people and take them into our central holding facility. The usual infractions range from drunk driving to unlawful discharge of firearms within the park.”
“Bonnie and Clyde back there will be just fine, right, guys?” joked Ashby.
“Yeah,” muttered Dusty, who seemed a little less enthusiastic than Rita was at being confined to the backseat with steel cages in front and behind them.
“Hey, look!” Rita exclaimed, pointing out the left side of the truck. “Isn’t that the British reporter from Caltech? It looks like her.”
Jake slowed the truck as he maneuvered through the water toward the entrance to the parking lot.
Ashby leaned over the console to get a better look. She was close to his shoulder when she spoke. “It is her. You know, I don’t remember her name, do you, guys?”
“No,” replied Dusty.
“Ella. Ella Hewitt,” said Jake. “She’s with the BBC. The red-haired fella is her photographer, Simon.”
Ashby leaned back against the passenger door and studied Jake. “You two know each other?”
He shrugged and shot her a glance. “No, not really. I met them at the restaurant this morning. When I went down to the lake with Jesse to look at the dead frogs, they just kinda showed up behind me unannounced.”
“Dead frogs?” asked Dusty.
“You mean she snuck up on you?” Ashby persisted.
Jake looked at her again and shrugged. “Yeah, just like you did when I was in that walk-in cooler. Two women snuck up on me in one day. It’s a dangerous world, I tell ya.”
After they exited the flooded parking lot of the Lake View Café, he hit dry pavement and flipped the switch for his emergency lights.
Ashby turned to Rita in the backseat and spoke through the steel mesh screen. “Seriously, are you guys okay back there?”
“Yeah, plenty of legroom, but the cages make me feel a little claustrophobic,” replied Rita.
“Do you have room to work on the laptop?”
“I think so. Let me see what I can find out on our tremor this morning.”
Dusty was impatiently waiting for an answer to his question. “Jake, are you gonna tell us about the dead frogs?”
Jake sped up and began the twenty-mile ride to Elephant Back Mountain via Grand Loop Road. Fortunately, traffic was light, as the park was temporarily closed following the earthquake, and an announcement had been made to the existing visitors to shelter in place. He turned down the squelch on his radio again so they could talk.
Jake took a deep breath and began. He chose to start with the day’s events, and then depending upon how that was received, he’d tell them about the day of the fire.
“Let me get started by telling you about myself so you’ll know I’m not some kind of crackpot. Since I was a kid, I’ve spent my time doing everything outdoors. I hike, rock climb, hunt, fish, camp. Pretty much anything out of doors, I’ve done it. I’ve even been on the television show Survivor back in the day.”
Rita scooted forward, ignoring her laptop chores. “Hey, now I recognize you. That was a long time ago. I started watching Survivor as a little kid, and I think the first season I watched was Thailand.”
“Wow, now I feel really old,” said Jake with a chuckle. “You’re right, Rita. It was season five in 2002. I was twenty back then.”
“This is way cool,” Rita continued to fangirl. “Wasn’t that the year all the old people got to the end?”
Ashby turned in her seat and looked at Rita. “Really?”
“Doc, have you ever watched the show?” asked Dusty, who was also a fan.
“No, well, maybe bits and pieces. How do you define old on Survivor?”
“Fortyish,” replied Rita dryly.
“Geesh,” mumbled Ashby, who threw her head against the headrest. She was a few years away from the golden years as defined by Survivor fans. “Remind me to fire you two when we get back to LA.”
Jake chuckled at her reaction and replied to Rita, “Good memory. Four out of the final six were over the age of forty-five. I was the youngest that season and made it to jury. It was a pretty neat experience.”
Ashby wanted to get back on topic. “You can tell us more later, Jake. What have you seen that’s got you so concerned?”
Jake raced past Old Faithful, which was erupting, as it had been every thirty minutes of late. In the past, the range had extended as far as two hours between eruptions. Now, thirty minutes was the norm.
“This morning on my way in, I was almost overrun by a bison stampede. First, let me say this. The bison move in herds, and they’re known to run from time to time, especially along roadways around the park. It’s not because they’re spooked by something but, rather, they want to get off the road. What happened this morning was different.”
Jake took a deep breath.
“Tell us, Jake.”
“They were racing full speed toward the west. It was almost like they were being chased. I’ve never seen them act like that within the park.”
“Where were you?” asked Rita, who was banging away on her laptop.
“I was driving down Route 191 in the Lower Geyser Basin, which is due west of Elephant Back Mountain, where we’re headed.”
“I take it you believe the earthquake and the bison stampede might be connected. Am I right?” asked Ashby.
Jake nodded. “There’s more. I had breakfast at the Lake View before I came across you guys. I spoke with Flo about the bison, and she relayed a couple of stories about the birds and fish. Common birds around the lake, like the American dipper and the geese, disappeared several days ago. It could be the fire, but that was located much farther north of where we are.”
“What about the fish?” asked Dusty.
“Same thing,” replied Jake. “Flo and her boyfriend have fished West Thumb and Yellowstone Lake for years. They know that lake like nobody else in the park. Their last outing yielded nothing. I mean absolutely nothing. These people catch so many they have to give them away or bring them to the restaurant to cook for guests.”
“Jake, I see where you’re going with this. There have been stories of strange animal behavior prior to earthquakes dating back to the days of ancient Greece. In recent history, scientists in China and Japan have dedicated scientific teams to studying the relationship between animals and seismic activity.
“Stories like what you’ve relayed today are abundant. Animals, birds, reptiles, and even insects exhibit unusual behavior anywhere from weeks to seconds before a quake. The problem is consistent and reliable studies prior to seismic events, and a scientific explanation, have eluded geologists and zoologists.”
Jake shrugged and shook his head. “Okay, it was probably nothing.”
Ashby studied his reaction and quickly added, “No, I didn’t say that. Here’s the thing. I’ll just explain it in scientific terms.”
“Let me do it, Doc,” interrupted Dusty. “I speak scientific English a little better than you do.”
Rita slugged him without saying a word and then continued studying her computer.
Ashby looked back at Dusty and smiled. “You’re lucky this screen is between us.”
“Sorry, Doc. That didn’t come out right,” said Dusty apologetically. “Jake, it’s like this. In geology terms, seismic waves are created during earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and magma movement. P-waves, or primary waves, mean the energy-created vibrations run very fast and can be detected first. A P-wave travels a lot like light and sound.
“S-waves, or secondary waves, are different because they run at right angles, aw
ay from the direction of vibrations. P-waves can be detected by our seismometers on the other side of the earth, and S-waves can only be detected near the earthquake’s center.
“Here’s the other thing, from a scientific perspective. Animals have keen senses that can detect the P-wave almost immediately, whereas humans typically cannot. That explains how they react quickly to seismic activity seconds or minutes before we feel it.”
“What about days in advance?” asked Jake.
Dusty sighed. “It’s like Ashby said. There isn’t enough scientific evidence to say for sure. There are precursors to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that might send off warning signs to animals, such as ground tilting, changes in the subsurface groundwater, and even magnetic field variations. Through the evolutionary process, animals could sense these signals and connect them with an impending earthquake.”
“Four-point-nine,” interrupted Rita. “Slightly stronger than the Montana quake the other day.”
“Wow, it felt like it was right under our feet,” added Ashby.
“It wasn’t close, actually,” Rita began. “The epicenter is centered around the north end of the lake, just to the east of the Elephant Back fault zone. Hang on while I do an overlay of the big quake swarm of ’08.”
Rita made several keystroke entries and produced a map of a period in 2008 when over one thousand earthquakes occurred in a swarm. She turned the laptop so Dusty could see the map overlay.
Several dots were congregated at the northern region of Yellowstone Lake at the top end of the Eagle Bay fault. Today’s quake was in the same region.
“Out of those thousand, only eighteen were in the magnitude range of three to three-point-nine. Today’s was much stronger.”
“Obviously, today’s earthquake was strong enough to trigger a landslide,” said Jake. “We’ve had rockslides before, but based upon the radio chatter, I think this is worse.”
Ashby finished off the answer to Jake’s query. “To go back to our discussion about the animal activity, with the epicenter located in an area of known earthquake swarms, it could be the fish and birds are wired to flee at the first sign of danger.”
Dusty asked again. “Now are you going to tell us about the frogs?”
Chapter 23
Elephant Back Mountain
Yellowstone
Jake relayed the story to the group as told by Jesse. Then he described what he’d seen along the shoreline and the accompanying smell. They all agreed with the photographer’s conclusions that the sulfur smell related to the earthquake that had occurred an hour later. Ashby reeled off a to-do list for Rita and Dusty, which included studying water levels and temperatures, looking for reports of unusual animal behavior during the 2008 swarm, and finding one of the dead frogs for testing.
Jake crossed the bridge over a part of the lake that stretched into the Bridge Bay campground. From the clearing, they got a beautiful view of Yellowstone Lake to their right. Traffic was heavy headed away from the landslide, as the Bridge Bay recreation area as well as parts of the Lake Lodge village were being evacuated.
Elephant Back Mountain was by no means one of the tallest peaks in Yellowstone. It rose roughly eight hundred feet above the lake’s altitude of seventy-seven hundred feet. By comparison, dozens of peaks within the park rose well above ten thousand feet, Eagle Peak being the tallest at eleven thousand plus.
The recreation area was a favorite of hikers. It was moderately steep, and with only an eight-hundred-foot elevation change, families of all ages could tackle the gradual inclines. One of the favorite viewing points enjoyed by hikers once they reached the summit was on the east face of the mountain overlooking Yellowstone Lake and the small community of Lake, which had two of the parks most popular hotels.
Jake passed through two roadblocks before reaching a point where vehicular traffic was stopped. The group didn’t say a word as they looked at the devastation. The east face of Elephant Back Mountain had collapsed.
Landslides constituted a major geologic hazard regardless of whether they were caused by an accompanying earthquake, rain-soaked ground, or the constant battering of powerful ocean waves. Over long periods of time, rivers, glaciers, or seismic activity created over-steepened slopes. They became things of beauty to onlookers, or those who dared construct their homes at the edge of the cliffs to take advantage of a beautiful view. They were, however, potentially deadly.
In the case of Elephant Back Mountain, the ground around the base of the east face overlooking the town had become saturated with heavy rains from the last couple of days. This, coupled with the four-point-nine earthquake with an epicenter barely a mile away, triggered the slope material to give way.
The resulting slurry of rock and debris had picked up steam as it raced down toward Yellowstone Lake. The hotels, campers, and visitors had never had a chance as they were engulfed by the mass of debris.
The four of them exited the truck and stared at the devastation. Ashby and her team had seen what mother nature hath wrought. In their geologic studies around the world, they’d seen Leilani Estates succumb to the constant lava flows from Kilauea. At least they’d had warning.
In Guatemala, the team had been told stories of families sitting down for Sunday lunches. As Volcán de Fuego had rumbled to life, food was left on the table. Clothes hanging on clotheslines and children’s toys had been abandoned. Sadly, animals and pets had been left behind in the panic.
By midday, massive volumes of ash and smoke had pushed skyward for miles before the heaviest of the debris fell back to earth, dusting a wide swath of Guatemala. Many had fled, but others, gambling that this eruption was minor like others before it, had remained.
They’d bet wrong.
Tons of ash, propelled by scalding, toxic gases, had poured down the sides of the volcano. The pyroclastic flows had sped at much faster speeds than the lava flows people around the world had observed from Hawaii. Trees, giant rocks, and mud had crushed the villages in their path.
By the next day, as the volcano had stopped erupting, everything in the lush, tropical landscape had been coated in layers upon layers of sepia-colored ash from de Fuego. Where there was once life, there were now entombed bodies of people and animals alike, suspended in animation amidst a lingering smell of sulfur.
Ashby had seen it before, up close and personal.
Jake wandered off to speak with his fellow law enforcement rangers and returned to the group.
“How bad is it, Jake?” asked Ashby.
“Nothing definitive, but my guys have estimates that would make this one of the worst disasters at Yellowstone Park since it was created.”
“So sad,” mumbled Rita.
“There is remarkably good news. A miracle, really. They just told me most of the people followed warnings and emptied out of the buildings during the earthquake. At the first signs of the landslide, they ran out of the path of the sliding debris. There’s been a ton of property damage and some injuries, but thus far, no fatalities.”
Ashby reached out for his hand, as Jake appeared to be clearly shaken. “That is amazing. Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Rescue and recovery teams are already in place, and the roads into the area are closed. My people have been ordered to stay out of the debris field in order to let the experts with the Wyoming National Guard handle rescue and recovery. Helicopters are on the way to look for hikers that might have gotten caught up in the landslide. The good news from that perspective is that the east face of the mountain collapsed, and the trails don’t run through there. The hiking trails have been closed, but they do need some help telling hikers to get off the mountain.”
“We’ll hike up there with you,” offered Dusty.
Jake thought for a moment and then looked around. “There’s one of our Kawasaki Mules with four seats. We can take it to the top.”
Jake returned to his fellow officers and advised them he’d sweep the mountain trails. After loading up the group, they found the trailh
ead and began their ascent. The route took them alongside the highway for a short distance before turning into the woods.
This part of the park contained extremely tall lodgepole pine trees, undamaged by wildfire. There was little undergrowth, giving the surroundings an open and airy feel, which helped when watching for bears.
After the trail climbed for a quarter mile, it flattened a little at a shallow ravine, where they found several hikers making their way down. Jake spoke to them for a moment and learned quite a few people were at the summit taking pictures. Jake thanked them, and he continued up a steep gully to where the plateau of Elephant Back Mountain stretched north-south to provide an incredible view of the north end of Yellowstone Lake.
Jake traveled the length of the plateau and back, admonishing the sightseeing hikers to get off the unstable mountain before it collapsed. They began to jog down both sides of the trail. Once they were alone, Jake found an opening where the trees didn’t hide the landscape. They could only see about one hundred twenty degrees of the landscape, but the viewpoint was breathtaking nonetheless.
Dusty and Rita were the first to exit the Mule, and like the visitors Jake had just run off, they immediately rushed to the edge to take pictures. Jake shook his head as the two ignored the warnings he’d just given to the hikers.
Ashby moved alongside Jake and laughed. “It’s unlikely the mountain is going to collapse. We’re on top of solid granite here. The landslide consisted of the loose stuff that had built up over hundreds if not thousands of years.”
Jake grimaced and nodded. “Good to know. Here’s the thing. Nobody respects authority anymore. They’ve learned they can argue with cops, even those like me. If I didn’t scare them, then I’d get a bunch of lip service. Over time, I’ve learned that fear is a great motivator. It worked.”
“Yeah, it did.”
Ashby walked toward the edge of the cliff, and Jake followed. The shadows were growing long as the day completely got away from him. To say it was action-packed would be an understatement.
