June 14-15

The sun is out!!! The last couple of days have been beautiful. The snow is even melting at the mountain. So of course, I had to go to Yellowstone to explore moore. I wanted to get to Lamar Valley where you can see (supposedly) lots of animals (actually right now I’ve seen all sorts of animals in Yellowstone). To get there, I had to go over Dunraven Pass, which winds up the mountain to almost 10,000 feet. Absolutely beautiful with wonderful views (see picture of the valley). And still lots of snow along the road.

As you come down the mountain, the road is narrow, winding, and going through woods. There were people pulled over, so of course, there is an animal. It was a MALE MOOSE with antlers. That was my 7^th moose, and the first male I’ve seen (saw the 8^th on Sunday). I can’t pull over – absolutely no room on the edge of the road, and quite frankly, with my camera, I’ll never get a shot. Other than the buffalo, very few animals hang out by the roads. But it sure was neat to see the moose.

Lamar Valley was beautiful – it is immense. Huge valleys with large herds of buffalo and elk. Yellowstone is truly “animal heaven”. I was told you could see bears and wolves in this valley. There are “wolf watchers” -- people who will park in the turnouts very early in the AM and sit there all day looking through very high powered scopes. I went by several spots on the way out and the way in, and these folks have not moved – and they have supplies for all day. At the first stop, I asked one lady what they were watching. She said someone had spotted 3 wolves at the top of the mountain around the snow line. OH MY GOD!! Even with my binoculars, I couldn’t begin to see a wolf. And if I can’t at least see it with my bare eyes, I’ll never get a picture. So I’m on my way to the next stop. Best of luck to all of them. (But I did see these Buffalo crossing one of the rivers).

One of the things I’ve noticed is when people see an animal, all common sense leaves them. The park was very crowded – weekend and first good weather in a week. But on the way out of the park, traffic came to a stand still. I barely moved for 15-20 minutes, and I’m thinking it has to be an animal. Sure enough, when I “crawled” to the turnout, people were stopped all over the road. I surely don’t mind people pulling off – that’s what I do – and I know they are excited. But they just stop in the middle of the road and start taking pictures. The trip today started off that way with the sighting of 2 bald eagles. Then again with a herd of buffalo and calves next to the road. And there was a herd of Elk at Mammoth Hot Springs (see picture to the left).

I’ve now seen 8 waterfalls in the park, plus several cascades. I know, I know – if you’ve seen one waterfall, you’ve seen them all. Not true – they all offer something different, and for most of them, you can get right next to the top of the falls. The power of that water is amazing. Below is the list:

Wraith Falls, Undine Falls, Firehole Falls (40 feet), Firehole Cascade, Upper Falls (109 feet), Lower Falls (308 feet), Gibbon Falls (84 feet), Rustic Falls (47 feet), and Tower Falls (132 feet - picture to the left)

The best story was getting to the Wraith Falls. As I stopped at the turnout, I notice the signs saying the path is closed for construction. But I just saw 5 people headed up the path, so I decide to go too. The path was still there and fairly easy to follow. The falls were very different -- they looked more like a giant water slide. I caught up with the folks, and as everyone seems to be in Yellowstone, they were very nice. When we got back out to the road, one of the guys read another sign that said Yellowstone was developing a bear habitat up by the falls, which was (as we all decided), another really good reason we shouldn’t have gone up. They suggested I might not want to follow them, as they didn’t read very well.

On Sunday, I decided it was “geyser day”. I wanted to start at the Lower Basin and work my way towards Old Faithful. What I didn’t know was that this was “hiking time” – no road through this basin. But this was good because I really wanted to get out and walk. So I did get in about 2 ½ miles walking, but didn’t seen much other than the beautiful valley and some hot springs. I didn’t realize the distances on the map were so far – and even with my binoculars, I didn’t see any of the typical Yellowstone directional signs. Oh well….I did look over the walking map of the Upper Basin where Old Faithful is located. It has the most concentrated geysers in the world. So that is this next week.

I did have an epiphany on Saturday. I absolutely love it out here, and I feel so at home. It struck me that I’ve spent my working life in “business” which is something that I never really “loved”. But it was all I knew to do. Don’t get me wrong, IBM was a good company for many years, and they paid me well which allowed me to buy my land, build my house, and have horses for many years. And I made some life long friends. So it certainly wasn’t a loss. But what if I had known about places like Montana? What if I had pursued an education and career where I could have worked in a park like Yellowstone – monitoring the forests or the wildlife. Now that would have been great. My sister, Gail, was the last born in our family, and like a “last born” she was always the creative one (and still is), and like many “last borns”, when she went to college, she had many majors before she settled on the medical field. I believe one of the first majors was in forestry. Little did I know I should have followed her lead 9 years before her.

Of course, the question is now – what do I do about it? I do have property which juts up to the Beartooth Mountains and the Custer National Forest. I also just saw in a real estate magazine that the “Top of the World” (a little gift store, gas station on the Beartooth Scenic drive) is for sale. Now there is at least a thought. But one thing is for sure – I have lots of time to think about the question as I keep driving 50 miles one way to get to Yellowstone.