We have been in Gardiner, Montana for almost two weeks,
training for our jobs at Madison campground again. We will be moving to the
campground on Friday. We spent a little more than a week traveling from
Puyallup, Washington to Gardiner. We stopped at Memaloose State Park near The
Dalles, Oregon the first night. Then we spent three nights at Farewell Bend
State Park near Ontario, Oregon. We usually stop in Declo, Idaho for a night or
two after driving the third segment of our trip, but friends that we will be
working with in Yellowstone were staying at a casino RV park in Fort Hall
Idaho, so we stayed there with them for a few nights. The weather was a little
iffy between Ashton Idaho and West Yellowstone a couple of days, so we made a
run for Yellowstone on Monday the 10th while there was a break in the snowy
weather. We only hit light snow a couple of times going over Targhee Pass and
the roads were clear and dry all the way to Yellowstone.
We got to Gardiner a couple days earlier than we needed to
for the job, which gave us a chance to do some sightseeing in Yellowstone
before all the paying visitors come. There is still quite a bit of snow around
the higher (6500+ ft) elevations and the snow pack has been melting slowly so
far, since the temperatures still dip below freezing most nights, but it is
warming up during the daytime.
On the trip through the park, to get to Gardiner, this is
what some of the areas looked like.
The only road in the park, open to all traffic before April
21st runs between Gardiner Montana and Cooke City Montana in the north end of
the park. We drove that road each day before we had to start our training.
So far, this has been our best year for animal sightings per
trip. In the four trips we've made we've seen...
Elk by the Gardiner River
Bison all over the place
Pronghorn in Lamar Valley
A Dusky Grouse that didn't want us to drive on his road.
A red fox
A Killdeer in one of the Mammoth hot springs
Sandhill cranes
Bighorn Sheep
Moose
Along with some interesting ice falls in Ice Box Canyon
And deer behind our trailer
Don had five and Penny had 2 days of training, then we
got a day off today and took the same drive again. In just five hours we
saw
More Bighorn Sheep
Eagles
A Grizzly bear having lunch
Nesting Osprey
Wolves
Two baby bison
Hopefully, we'll have the same success the rest of the
season.
Great pics!
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