The night of May 18 - May 19, we had a snow storm. We ended up with over 4 inches of very wet snow. A number of tent campers found themselves in very short tents in the morning, after the snow collapsed their tents.

 

On the 19th we took a hike out to Lone Star Geyser. Like last year, we got to the geyser just as it was beginning to erupt. We could have ended up waiting for three hours if our timing hadn't been so good.

 

On the way out to the trailhead, south of the Old Faithful area, we came across a pair of trumpeter swans in the Firehole River but we weren't able to get a photo with both of them with their heads above the water at the same time.

We also saw a herd of bison resting near the lower geyser basin. One of the females had two babies lying near her. We don't know if they were both hers or not.

 

Once a week Penny has to drive to Norris Campground to sell fire wood to the campers. It's usually a half hour drive. It's become a common problem this year for it to take longer to get there because of the bison in the area. Some of the people have taken an hour and a half to get there. This is what Penny had to wait for the last time she went up there.

 

Driving back from town one day, we saw the first of the goslings that are beginning to hatch.

Tuesday the 26th we went on a hike to Storm Point with our hiking partners that we work with. On the way to the trailhead, which is east of Fishing Bridge, Penny said she thought she saw a bear in the woods on the other side of the road. We stopped at the turnout on our side and walked back to where she thought it was, expecting to find a stump. After looking around for five  minutes or so, I saw some movement in the trees, back towards where we had parked the truck. I walked back along the road towards the truck because it had looked like whatever it was, was moving that direction. Penny and our hiking partners hadn't gone very far when one of them yelled "Don, it's headed right for you!". I looked up into the woods and sure enough it was a good size black bear foraging for mushrooms and working it's way towards the road. Penny said something about having to get back in the truck and flew past me and jumped into the back seat on the driver's side. I walked back across the street to the truck and climbed into the driver's seat. Our hiking partners made their way to the back end of the truck. Fortunately, the bear stayed on the other side of the road and made its way back into the woods after digging up a few morsels in the opening in the woods. We were the first ones to find this bear, but a crowd of cars started building up around us as people driving by saw the bear. It appeared to be a beautiful male.

 

After the bear disappeared into the woods we continued our drive to the trailhead. It rained a little while during the first half of our hike, but we were in the trees, so we didn't get terribly wet and it only drizzled for a short time.

Near the far end of the loop walk is a rock formation that yellow bellied marmots live in. Last year when we did this hike in the late summer, we didn't see a single marmot. This year we got to see a few. They are cute little buggers that use the rocks as a condominium.

 

On the second half of the loop trail we found black bear foot prints that had to be no more than a few hours old, since the rain and hikers would have obliterated them otherwise. They were probably from the black bear that we had seen earlier, since they indicated the bear was headed towards where we saw him. We got caught in a hail storm for the last few hundred yards of the hike, but it ended shortly after we got back to the truck.

We are looking forward to our next hike, though we haven't decided where that will be.

5/13/15

We went on a drive to the Tetons Tuesday. Because of road closures due to construction, we had to go the long way around, through the Hayden Valley. This is the time of year that the Harlequin ducks congregate at the La Hardy rapids, just below the Yellowstone Lake, on the Yellowstone River. The males are only there for about two weeks during mating season, so it can be difficult to see them at all. The males have very interesting color patterns on their bodies.

 

Here is a photo with three pairs of ducks.

 

We had hoped to maybe find a moose or two in the Tetons, but we didn't find any animals at all. We saw a few elk and a bunch of bison during the drive through Yellowstone though.

We also stopped to see the Sulphur Cauldrons in the Hayden Valley. We've been by them many times, but haven't stopped there until now.

 

In the Gibbon Valley, on the way home, we did see a mother grizzly and her cub. We think it's the same one that was in the campground at the end of the season last year.

 

It snowed the first three evenings after we got to the campground, which is good, since it will help with the lack of snow pack that we have this year. We hope that it continues to snow every night until the end of September, as it might reduce the number of people that are planning on coming through the campground this year.

Sunday the 26th, we went on the company sponsored tour of the lower loop of the park. It is a tour available to guests, at a price, called the Circle of Fire. It goes around the loop stopping at all the thermal features, with the bus driver explaining the science and or history behind the different features. The company provides the tour so we can familiarize ourselves with the features of the park, to better explain them to the guests when they ask about them.

The first half of the tour was uneventful, other than walking the boardwalk around the Grand Prismatic Spring in a blowing snow storm. After touring the lower portion of the loop around the Old Faithful area, it goes around the west side of the loop up to Norris Geyser Basin, then takes a sharp right to head east to the Canyon Village area. We had lunch in the visitors center when we got there.

After lunch we headed south towards the Yellowstone Lake area, having to pass through a locked gate that prevents guests from driving in the area until the park service decides to open the gates - usually based on snow levels and the number of grizzly bears in the area. On the way south, the only thing we noticed was the low level of the lake and rivers.

 

On the way back north (we couldn't continue south because a bridge is being replaced along the road) one of our group saw an animal out in the field to the left. As it turned out, it was a grizzly bear. Well, not 'a' grizzly bear, but FOUR grizzly bears. A mother and her three cubs.

A few miles further, in the Hayden Valley, we saw a wolf across the Yellowstone River, walking along the bank.

This is just about the same location we had seen a wolf when we came to Yellowstone as tourists, nine or ten years ago.

After getting back to the Norris Geyser Basin and heading south towards the campground that afternoon, we saw another sow grizzly and one cub just north of the Gibbon Falls area. It appears that she is the same grizzly that was visiting our campground late last season. We all hope that she stays in the area she is currently and doesn't come back to the campground. Only bad things could come of it if she returns. At the very least she would be trapped and moved somewhere much farther away. At worst she would be put down as a hazard to humans.

It turns out, the photos we took of her last year in the campground, are now being used in one of the visitor centers, in a bear safety video.

After a few days of practicing our check-in process, we opened for business on May 1st. We checked people into more sites than any other opening day over the last five years. With the nice weather we've been having, there's little to discourage them from coming.

At some point during our bus tour on the 27th, Penny lost her ID pouch, where she kept her Xanterra ID card and her drivers license. Fortunately, she didn't keep anything else - like credit cards - in it. Apparently no one found it and turned it in and I went back to look around all the places she might have lost it, but I couldn't find it. That all forced us to take a quick trip to South Dakota to get her a replacement license.

After work on Monday (noon) the 4th, we headed east and got to Spearfish, South Dakota about 10 p.m. We stayed in a hotel in Spearfish and headed to Rapid City the next morning. South Dakota requires that you show proof of having stayed in the state, at least one night, during the last 12 months, to get a duplicate license. We hadn't been in SD since March of 2014. Otherwise, we might have been able to get her license online. We would have gotten her license in Spearfish, but that office is only open on Wednesdays, hence the trip to Rapid City. It took less than 30 minutes to get her license replaced and we were headed back to Yellowstone. After a 12 hour drive we arrived safely in the campground. Penny was able to get some nice pictures of the scenery during our trip, to help make it more worthwhile.

Yellowstone Lake is still frozen, but is thawing out.

There are some interesting rock formations east of the park.

 

 

And some interesting buildings 

 

Just east of Gillette, Wyoming, I-90 cuts through the middle of a coal mine.

 

One of the places we find very interesting is the Ten Sleep area of central Wyoming.

 

 

So far, we're having a great time. Hope to see some of you here during the summer.

To our families and friends -

 

Happy Mother's Day