5/7/17

We have been at the campground since the 21st of April. Until this week we've had quite a bit of snow, up to 4 inches one night. It has all melted off at the elevation we are at 6800 ft, but there's still significant snow above 7500 ft.

Just to give you an idea of how much snow we had here is a picture looking back toward the campground, from Gibbon Falls.

 

 The last couple of days has gotten into the 60's and low 70's.

There has been a sow grizzly with her one plus year old cub feeding around the Norris area every day, since we got down to the campground. We were able to get a great shot of them on one of our days off.

 Then the cub sat down to check out one of its paws. It was so cute!

 

The bison have begun having their calves and we have seen Osprey nesting, bald eagles and this year we saw a Golden Eagle near the Gibbon River.

On our drives between Mammoth and the Lamar Valley we've seen a cinnamon black bear.

 

On one of our trips through the Lamar Valley, a bison gave birth to a calf that didn't survive. Two wolves that live in the area noticed it and tried to get the dead calf away from the mother. We watched for an hour or more while the wolves tried and the mother bison chased them off over and over, apparently not able to accept the death of her calf.

 

On the 30th, we were up in the Norris area and saw the sow and cub grizzlies again. Penny got a great shot of the cub standing up in the middle of the road looking at all the people taking photos of it.

 

We also went up to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Only one overlook was open, so we got a photo of ourselves with the lower falls in the background, while it was snowing.

 

This last weekend, we drove to Cooke City, outside the northeast entrance, with our hiking buddies. On the drive, we saw a black bear at Tower Junction and a bunch of Red Dogs (baby bison) in the Lamar Valley.

 

On our way back to the campground, we saw a red tail fox in the sage brush, trying to find a meal.

 

Swans, sandhill cranes, blue herons, osprey, eagles, bighorn sheep, pronghorn and marmots filled out the remainder of the day.

 

 

4/19/2017

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

 

All in the first three days after we arrived.

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

 

And the newest arrivals to the park...

Two baby bison

 

 Hopefully, we'll have the same success the rest of the season.

4/7/2017

We arrived in Pocatello, Idaho yesterday afternoon, on our way back to Yellowstone for another season. We are staying in the RV park of the Fort Hall casino, visiting with some co-worker friends that are also on their way to work in Yellowstone this summer.

We spent last winter at Thompson's Mills again, which gave us a chance to get Don's mom moved to Wisconsin, where she can get some assistance with her mobility issues related to her knees. She will be living with friends that we've known for many decades.

While we were at the mills we had -

Snow

Rain, LOTS OF RAIN, which flooded the mill a couple times

 

 

Ice

 

Great Blue Herons 

Nutria 

Bald Eagles

 

 

Beautiful sunsets

Rainbows

 

and a good time.

Don was able to get a security camera system installed in and around the mill. He also built a floor for one of the chicken coups, so we don't have to walk in the mud when we go inside it to clean it out. We gave the usual tours to the guests and had a couple of school groups come through, one of which was 120 second graders from Philomath.

With all the rain and snow we've been getting the past month, the fires are pretty much out, to the point that the park service is no longer giving us information on them and the restricted areas have been opened again.

Since my last post, we've taken a few drives around the park but have also been recovering from sinus infections and most recently, a 24 hour bug that takes 4 days to clear up.

On a drive around the lower loop on September 6th, we saw a buck blacktail deer in the woods near Yellowstone Lake.

 

 

On September 7th we took a day drive down to the Tetons, in part to see some friends we worked with our first year here. They are working at Gros Ventre campground south of Tetons National Park. On our way to the campground we saw a male moose in a meadow by a river.

One of the fires that occurred last month was between Yellowstone and the Tetons. During the fire, one of the campgrounds in that area was evacuated at five in the morning and the road between Yellowstone and the Tetons was closed for a while. By the time we went through the area, enough rain had come to knock down the fire but there were still some hotspots that could be seen from the road.

We could also see some of the results of the fire where it crossed the road.

 

On September 12th we woke up to about 3 inches of snow on the ground.

Fall colors started coming out about that time and we have been getting around to see them too. We took a short drive out towards West Yellowstone on the 13th and saw a few deciduous trees turning yellow and orange, amongst the hills highlighted with snow.

 

On the 14th we went out to the Hayden Valley, in the middle of the park, along the way we saw two bald eagles near the Gibbon River.

 

 

 

More fall colors were coming out as we drove farther north.

 

Back out to West Yellowstone on the 19th, the colors were becoming even more vivid.

 

Tuesday, September 20th, we decided to drive up the Beartooth Highway, then down to Cody and back home through the east entrance of the park. On the way over Dunraven Pass to the northeast entrance of the park, we came across a sow black bear and her two cubs looking for mushrooms and grubs on the hill above the road.

 

The Beartooth highway is always a beautiful drive, especially with the trees changing colors.

 

Driving south from the Beartooth to Cody, we drove the Chief Joseph highway. We had never been on that road before. It also has some beautiful features.

 

From Cody to the east entrance of Yellowstone were more colors.

 

We stopped at the Old Faithful area on our way home and a geyser we had not seen erupt before was erupting. I'm still trying to figure out what the name of the geyser is.

 

On September 28th, we drove to Mammoth. It's a long drive at the moment. Since the road between Norris and Mammoth is closed due to construction you have to drive over Dunraven Pass which adds an hour or more to the trip. It was the elk rut season and there was one bull elk, with a harem of most of the female elk in the area, resting behind the post office in Mammoth.

 

On October 5th we took another drive around the lower loop after stopping at the Old Faithful Inn for a buffet breakfast provided by Xanterra. We stopped at West Thumb to walk around the boardwalk. It had snowed the night before and there were still a few inches of snow on the ground and trees. As we drove into the parking area, we noticed a bull elk lying in the trees. He seemed to still be half asleep.

A new hot spring had opened up in the middle of the West Thumb geyser basin. It had drained much of the water out of the adjacent hot springs. With the reduction of moisture in the mud pots, the mud was thickening up. We were able to get a photo of a large bubble in the mud pot.

The snow in the area made the area even more beautiful along the lake shore.

 

The snow had fallen above 7000 feet, so we didn't have any at the campground, but the hills were beautiful.

We stopped at the Sulphur Caldrons on the way around the loop. With the rain and snow we've been getting, the mud pots are a lot wetter. The sulphur fumes coming up through the fluid made for many bubbles.

This is likely our last blog post from Yellowstone this season, since we will be leaving here around October 18th, depending on the weather.