May 2016: Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Parks--Archival Post

Lodgepole Pines with new snow on them in May

I took a year and a half break from blogging.  I don't know why, but I did.  I did not take a year and a half break from Yellowstone or other travelling.  Sometimes a guy just gets busy.  But now I need to play catch-up.

This blog post details a trip up to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks that the Hot Chick and I made near the end of May last year.  We love Yellowstone at any time of year and are always looking for excuses to drive up and see the park.

Last May, toward the end of the month we had a free Saturday and we went up.  We figured, May, should be fine, the weather should be good.  Then when we got to Island Park, the weather started to turn.  The further north we traveled, the worse it got.  We were starting to second guess our decision to go to Yellowstone, but we soldiered on anyway.  By the time we reached Mack's Inn (22 miles away from Yellowstone),  we were engulfed in a blizzard.  We weren't sure if we had packed warm enough jackets for this trip.  But we went on anyway.

Blizzard on the Henry's Fork of the Snake River at Macks Inn

The ducks didn't like it either

After we crossed the Continental Divide and the state line into Montana, the weather cleared up a bit.  It was still cold but at least the blizzard stayed on the Idaho side.

We had gone up to Yellowstone without an agenda.  We wanted to go but didn't know what we wanted to see.  Because of the weather, though, we decided it was going to be more of a 'see what we can from inside the car' day.

One of the first things we saw around Madison Junction was a very cold bald eagle sitting in a tree.  We took the Firehole Loop Road and saw the falls.  The water was quite muddy with the spring runoff.  Apparently we were going to Old Faithful.

Because of the cold and the fact that we were unprepared for it to be cold, we did not stop at any of the geyser basins between Madison Junction and Old Faithful.  I did stop for a trumpeter swan, though.  It was near Nez Perce Creek, and the swan was on an island just preening itself.  I watched for quite a long time and took a lot of pictures.  Suffice it to say, I had no idea a swan's neck was that maneuverable.  I could post a dozen pictures of the swan's neck in different contorted positions, but I won't.

When we got to the Upper Geyser Basin, we pulled in just in time to see Castle Geyser in full eruption.  Castle is one of the great geysers in Yellowstone and it's eruptions can last twenty or thirty minutes.  It's quite the sight.  We had a decision to make at this point.  Do we sit out in the cold and watch Old Faithful?  Do we turn around and go home?  Do we pay twice the regular amount and buy a winter coat inside the park? or do we head south and go home by way of Grand Teton National Park?

We've seen Old Faithful ten hundred million billion times, and while it's really cool and we never get tired of it, we decided not to sit in the cold and wait for it.  We had intended to spend the day in the park, and had already committed the time and the gas money to be there, so it seemed a waste to just turn around and go home.  There is no way I'm going to spend the money to buy my clothes in Yellowstone.  I love the park, but the stuff in the shops is too expensive for my tastes.  So Grand Teton it was.

The Bald Eagle, who seemed as cold as we were

National Park Mountain at Madison Junction.  Below this site, a hundred and fifty years ago or so, the explorers who were investigating the claims of this part of the country, camped and dreamed up the idea of setting Yellowstone apart as a national park so everyone could enjoy it.  This was a revolutionary idea because there had never been a national park before, anywhere on earth.  I'm glad they did.

So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains, where the spirits go now, Over the hills where the spirits fly now, ooh.  I really don't know.

Firehole Falls, the muddy version

One of the tamer poses of this swan

Castle Geyser happening now.

We headed towards Lake and south to Grand Teton National Park.  On our way, we stopped to see Lewis Falls and Moose Falls.  Not surprisingly, the further south we went, the better the weather became.

Yellowstone Lake

Yellow Bells, why is everything yellow in this park?

Snow covered hill 

Lewis Falls

Looking down the canyon

Moose Falls

From further away

This guy considered us to be uninvited guests

I've always loved old bridges

The weather started getting better and there was less snow, so we continued on our journey.  As we drove through the northern part of Grand Teton National Park, we saw a large grizzly bear.  We also saw a pelican swimming in Jackson Lake.  When we got to the Signal Mountain Turnoff, we realized we had never been there, so we headed up.  It was a very spectacular view of the whole valley.  While we were up there, we surprised a dusky grouse and her husband.  I'm not sure they were excited to have us in their living room.

While we were up on Signal Mountain, we saw some strange looking wood piles.  They were underneath the forest canopy and were piled up as if they were going to be made into tepee fires.  Then we saw burnt fire circles.  This was a mystery until we discovered a sign.  These were made of fallen timber and were an attempt to clean out the fuel on the forest floor to mitigate the damage in case of a forest fire.  In other words they were doing controlled burns to try to avoid the big one like they had in Yellowstone in 1988.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  We thought the fires of 1988 were devastating for Yellowstone.  We left in 1988 and went to the east for six or seven years, then we ended up in the Seattle area for another six years.  When we came back, we were amazed at how healthy Yellowstone had become as a result of the fires.  Forest fires are an integral part of the life cycle of a healthy forest.

The Teton Range with cloud cover on Jackson Lake

More cloud cover

Da Bear

Da Bear again

Pelican

View from Signal Mountain

USGS Survey marker on Signal Mountain

Incredible view

Another incredible view

The dusky grouse 

And her husband

More view

Strange tepee fire thingys

The rest of the trip was punctuated by glorious views of the cloud shrouded Teton range.  It was really pretty.  The west is a land of superlatives.  I don't have words to do the scenery justice here.  That is the domain for the great poets I think.  So as a lesser poet, I think I'll finish by showing pictures.

Lily-pads on a small lake or pond

Clouds shrouding the majestic American Alps

More clouds, more alps

It was difficult to have to be exposed to such beautiful scenery all day, but we managed to survive

We had to drive on this road

Who said clouds could be so low?

It was really quite amazing

Can't get enough of this

As you can tell

It was really pretty

Last shot of the day

We drove home through Jackson Hole after a really beautiful day in two national parks.  We love living here.

May 2015: Birdwatching

Cartier Slough Wildlife Management Area

Like I need another hobby.  I've taken up birdwatching.  It's not that this is anything new, I've always been interested in birds and have always enjoyed trying to identify them, until now I haven't gone out specifically to view them.  I always have spotted them while I was doing other things.  I always had the intention of bird watching but the time was never right.

So one of my friends and colleagues has been a bird watcher for a long time.  I have admired his photographs of birds for many years.  He won a blue ribbon at the fair for a flock of ibis' in flight against the moon.  Really cool picture.  He also has a closeup of a sandhill crane that is stunning.  I decided to take a little more interest in the hobby.

My friend, Omar has been going out to a place called Camas National Wildlife Refuge for years.  It is a bird sanctuary about thirty miles from my home and I never really knew about it.  He showed me some pictures he had taken out there and I decided I needed to go.  I've already blogged about it a couple of times, then I saw there was a wildlife refuge really close called Mud Lake.  I took the Hot Chick there and then I blogged about it.

On Saturday we decided to go out to Sand Creek Wildlife Management Area to spot more birds.  I got skunked.  No birds, just a bunch of humans fishing.  I didn't see any birds and they didn't catch any fish.  Karma.  We also went out to Chester Marshes Wildlife Management Area and didn't really get much there either.  The ponds at Sand Creek are closed to humans because they are a sensitive nesting ground for some endangered species.  The ponds open on July 1st.  We'll be able to go back and hopefully see the elusive great blue heron that I've been trying to photograph for a long time.

When I drove home from work today, I was in a torrential downpour.  Not a good day for birding.  Or was it?  I looked across the steppe toward the Camas National Wildlife Refuge and it appeared there was no rain there, even a little sunshine.  I couldn't convince anyone in the family to go out and hang with me so I went myself.  I had a nice time, but my initial instincts were right.  It wasn't a very good day to go birding.  I only saw a few birds, but the ones I saw were really cool.

The first bird I saw was a bald eagle with bulrushes in it's talons, heading toward the nest.

Bald eagle in nest building mode

Same bald eagle, same bulrushes, my blog my rules

I don't know why I looked over at the canal bank when I did, but I saw a willet.  I didn't know what it was at first and I had to wait until I got home to identify it, but it was a willet.  Long legs long slender beak.  Pretty cool bird.  It was gloomy and overcast, and the bird nearly blended in with the dirt it was standing on.  I saw the bird only by chance.

Willet

posing

again

I drove all through the preserve and saw a few owls, but none close enough to get a picture of.  I saw a sandhill crane in flight but never close enough.  I saw a pheasant and when I stopped to photograph it, my wipers went off and it spooked the bird and it ran off like a roadrunner.  It was kind of funny.  I snapped a couple of pics of it, but I didn't have the camera set a motion, so they ended up blurry and unusable.

It was getting dark pretty fast and the rain was coming and going, so my time at Camas was short and mostly unproductive.  Not a waste of time though.

At the last pond, I saw several families of Canada geese swimming together.  The parents were teaching the young.  That was awesome.  I normally don't take pictures of Canada geese because I have seen so many of them in my life that they don't seem as cool as they once did.  But when I see them behaving as a family, I dig that.

Canada geese teaching their young

and the neighbors

As I drove home, I noticed a sign that said, "Cartier Slough W.M.A." by a place called "Beaver Dick Park".  Wildlife Management Areas are all over the place around here and I never knew.  I can't turn around without running into one.  They are everywhere.  I discovered that Idahoans like birds.  Who knew?  I took the drive around Cartier only as a fact finding mission because it was getting dark fast.  It's a beautiful slow spot in the river and is full of habitat for not only birds but also big game.  I saw two whitetail deer bound away and numerous rabbits.  I didn't see many birds, but the first one I did see was another willet.

Willet

Another view

As I drove around the preserve, I discovered the remains of an elk and a whitetail deer.  The carcasses were mostly intact but both of them were missing their heads.  A headless deer three feet away from a headless elk.  I had stumbled upon a poachers camp.  Stuff like that irritates me.

Poached elk

I looked up Cartier Slough W.M.A. when I got home and found that there are no interior roads in the refuge but there are a few trails.  It is heavily overgrown and the literature suggests seeing it best by way of canoe.  I may take them up on it.  I love to canoe.  The literature said that was the best way to see the waterfowl.  That means it's time to buy a canoe.  Great, another hobby!

Cartier Slough

Rainwater collecting in pits in the lava rock

Cottonwood tree in silhouette 

Sunset in Idaho

Sometime in the next month I intend to take the hiking trails into the interior of Cartier Slough.  It was a beautiful place and I want to see more of it.