Fire

Once again, Yellowstone is on fire. The big fire this year is the Colombine Fire, located in the backcountry not too far from the east gate. Fire danger reached a serious point two nights ago when the Park Service was forced to close the east entrance road from Pelican Creek to the gate. The road reopened this morning, but there is the distinct possibility that they will have to close it again. We have high winds and thunderstorms predicted every day for the next few days.

Did I mention there are only 79 firefighters assigned to fight this fire? Someone from the fire management team came to the hotel this afternoon with a copy of the map showing the fire's progression, and he told us that there are 200+ fires burning in the US with no one to fight them. They just can't find enough firefighters. So, they can do little more than keep an eye on this one, hoping it doesn't get to the big, multi-million dollar summer homes built in the mountains right outside the park. They dump water and fire retardent from planes when they can, but the winds frequently force them to abandon the effort.

I took these pictures from Yellowstone Lake at Grant Village. They are of the smoke column from the Promontory Fire complex--three small, lightening-caused fires that also started last Thursday (the same day as the Colombine Fire) on a peninsula that juts into the south part of the lake. These fires are being allowed to burn, since they are in a remote part of the park and no threat to people or infrastructure, though the Park Service is keeping an eye on them.

Greetings from Cody, Wyoming!

I arrived last night at about 5:30 pm, just in time to check into my hotel (the historic Irma Hotel) and watch the Cody Gunfighters gunfight in the street in front of the hotel. Honestly, the gunfight was a little lame, but fun at the same time. My room is AWESOME! I love my room. I have a room in the historic section of the hotel, the Irma Suite. It has a little sitting room and separate bedroom that looks out over Sheridan Avenue. For the most part, traffic noise isn't a problem, though there are tons of motorcyclists in town, they're parked on the street below my window, and they seem to like to leave late in the evening, revving their engines repeatedly before departing. That's not fun.

I got up early this morning (5am), had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, then drove about 3 1/2 hours to Little Big Horn Battlefield. It was an interesting place. I haven't read a lot about the battle, didn't know much about the battlefield, so I didnt have much of a frame of reference before going. And really, all I remember about it from my high school history class is that this is where George Custer met his end. Pretty sad, huh? So, when I arrived, I bought a ticket for a guided bus tour. It was pretty interesting, led by a Crow Indian woman. After the tour, I listened to a ranger talk about the battle. The ranger was also a Crow Indian woman, and she got very emotional while giving the talk, even crying at the end when she talked about the few 7th Cavalry survivors in Reno's command.

They don't allow people to walk the battlefield like they do at Gettysburg. There are a few trails, and I walked along one on the Reno-Benteen battlefield (where the battle began) that followed along some of the entrenchments. I also saw the monument on top of Last Stand Hill which sits on top of the mass grave containing the remains of approximately 250 soldiers, maybe including some of Custer. It turns out, the initial burial party didn't bury the bodies very well, and when the army returned a year later, the bodies had all resurfaced and the remains scattered all over by animals. A very small bit of Custer's remains were taken to West Point, NY for burial, so it's likely that Custer's still at Little Big Horn.

I'm going back to Yellowstone tomorrow, most likely via the Chief Joseph Highway, through Cooke City and the Northeast Entrance. On Friday morning, I have an interview for the winter season. I've applied for the Senior Guest Services Agent position at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. For the first time in a long time, I'm having fun in my job. Sure, occasionally the guests can be a little bit annoying, but for the most part, it's a lot of fun. Wish me luck.

Since my last post...

Yeah, yeah, yeah....it's been a while since my last post. Let's see, what have I been up to.

Well, I made a trip up to Red Lodge, Montana, a couple of weeks ago, driving the famed Beartooth Highway. The late Charles Kuralt called the Beartooth Highway the most scenic drive in America. Having not ever driven all of the scenic highways in America, it's a little hard for me to agree or disagree, but it is a beautiful and fun drive. Hairpin turns, few guard rails, a 10,945 foot summit...oh, it's fun Camero road all the way! I took a lot of pictures that are intended to be stitched together as panoramas, so it's going to take a while for me to get them posted on the web. Stay tuned for that.

Did some wolf watching over the last couple of weeks. The Hayden Valley pack had chosen a spot just across the Yellowstone River from the Otter Creek Picnic Area to use as their rendezvous point. Four adults in the pack plus five adorable puppies. If I can hold on to a connection with my web server long enough, I'll be posting pictures of them soon. My frustration with the internet access here is a whole other story and not one I'll go into. I'll just say it's pretty bad.

It's been raining this morning, which is a very good thing. There have been a couple of fires burning in the park, one in the northwest corner and one southeast of Yellowstone Lake. They've been fighting the Owl fire; no rain up there, according to the website, but it's cloudy and cooler. Should help them out. It's been so hot in the northern part of the park this last week that the corrals at Mammoth and Canyon have been cancelling their afternoon horseback rides.

I'll be going out into the park today to take some pictures. Here's hoping the clouds and rain continue continue today.

It Takes All Kinds

So, today's post isn't about my travels inside the park. But the story's just too good to keep to myself.

One of the things I can do as part of my job is to make and cancel dinner reservations for our guests. Unless it's close to time for the restaurant to open, I can do this on the computer. It's pretty easy stuff.

A couple of days ago, one of our guests came in, and I just happened to be at the front desk. She said she wanted to cancel her dinner reservations for that evening and probably also for the next evening. Okay, that's not unusual. Happens all the time. Then she told me why. She said if she had known when she made the reservations that it would be a full moon, she never would have made them. Then she went on to say that she wouldn't be back to the hotel until after 11:00 both nights.

I don't think I want to know.....

A Four and a Half Bear Weekend

How do you like my weekend rating system? Actually, four and a half bears has nothing to do with how good my weekend was. Four and a half bears are what I saw this weekend.

Started out as one of those days...you know the ones. You wake up somewhat early on your day off, and you know you want to do something, you just don't know what it is. Well, that was me yesterday. I seriously just loaded my camera stuff into the car, picked a direction and drove.

I ended up heading up the east side of the park, through Hayden Valley and over Dunraven Pass to the Lamar Valley and then Cooke City for lunch. Pretty productive trip. I saw three black bears: two of them between Tower Falls and Roosevelt Lodge and one in Lamar Valley across from the Pebble Creek campground. Bear four was a grizzly bear, the half a bear was one of her cubs. Okay, maybe I should have said it was a four and a third bear day, because the griz did have three cubs; I only got to see one of them. I had to look through a kind man's spotting scope to see them.

There are two fires burning in or near the park now. I was in the smoke of one of them when I got up into the northeastern part of Lamar Valley. The smoke, and the resulting poor visibility, kept me from driving up the Chief Joseph Highway and on down to Cody yesterday. Besides, it was getting to be mid-day with really lousy light for photography. Some other time, I guess.

The tiny little town of Cooke City is not without its own drama. I stopped for lunch at a little place called (get this) Buns N Beds. They have a really good hamburger and homemade potato chips. While I was waiting for my burger, a woman came in to call 911. I didn't hear the first part of her conversation to know where she had been hiking. All I heard was her saying something about a collapsed tent with a body inside; that she had poked at it with her walking stick and got no response, she had shouted at it and still received no response, and she didn't have the nerve to actually lift the tent and look inside. Creepy.

This morning was another of those unplanned days, so I headed over to West Yellowstone, and ended up right in the middle of the smoke from fire number two. It was awful. I don't have breathing problems, but the smoke was so thick that I had trouble breathing. I can't imagine how bad it was for people who do have respiratory problems. I asked the ranger at the entrance station where the fire was, and she said it was outside the park and heading north. It's only the end of June. This is, unfortunately, only the beginning...

What's New

Ok, maybe I'm posting today because I realized I hadn't posted anything in almost two weeks. No update on last week's adventures, and it's almost my weekend again!

So, these cute little coyote pups live in the rocks next to the road near Gibbon Meadows, which is on the grand loop road between Madison and Norris. Aren't they just the cutest?! I just love the baby animals here... They weren't too active, though. They ended up finding a nice shady spot in the dirt near their den, curling up into a giant fuzzy ball (there were six of them involved), and going to sleep.

It was a beautiful day in Yellowstone that day; warm enough to open up the t-top in my car and cruise the lower loop. Whoo hoo!

Went to Grand Teton on Thursday with my friend Susan. We got to see a lot of wildflowers in bloom, but not a lot of wildlife. Mostly saw bison, though strangely enough there weren't any babies in the herd (it was a gi-normous herd, too). We also saw a couple pronghorn, and a bull moose! Yippee! Finally, a moose. Don't see them very often, so it's exciting when they make an appearance. In fact, I think they're the most asked about animal in the park. Everyone asks at the front desk where they can see moose.

My Day Off

Well, the snow wasn't as bad as predicted. I had about an inch or so piled on my car this morning, but the roads were good. There was crime scene tape stretched along the parking lot at the restaurant/ employee dining room this morning. Turns out, the grizzly bear came in last night and killed a baby elk in the woods. The mother bear and her cubs were in there this morning, but I didn't get to see them. I did see the upset mother elk. Very sad.

I got out into the park this morning, traveling up to Canyon, then across the center of the park to Norris, turning south to Old Faithful and then ultimately back to Grant Village. In short, I just toured the lower loop. Once again, examples of brainless tourists filled the roadways, with the dumbest of the dumb approaching bison--these people were no more than 10 feet away. And when I very nicely asked them (from my car) to please move away, they ignored me! I didn't know whether I should just leave them to their fate or stop to take photographs so the rangers would have something to help these morons' kids identify the bodies. I left them there. Maybe they survived.

How cute is this little guy? My first baby elk of the season! Unfortunately, it lives in the danger zone of Grant Village. Fingers crossed that this little baby makes it.

No News...

There really isn't anything new to report this time. The weather has turned cold, and there's a predicton of 6-10" of snow overnight. Figures. I have tomorrow off, and it looks like I'll be stranded here. Not that this is really all bad. I suppose I could always bundle up, take my camera and walk to the lake for some pictures. Or maybe hang out on the edge of the forest behind the dorm and wait for the cow elk to come out. Maybe one of them will even bring a baby along for the ride. Still haven't seen any baby elk. I'm a little disappointed about that.

Today at work was a little scary, if only because I must be starting to know what I'm doing. I didn't get behind with any of my reports today (like I usually do), and I was really pretty much done with everything by 1:30 this afternoon. Yipee! Made for kind of a boring afternoon, though. Oh well. Can't have everything, right?

The Baby Bear Drought

Well, I've finally seen baby bears. Baby grizzly bears, no less!

I had yesterday off and spent it in the park. I drove up to Old Faithful to check the geyser prediction list for Great Fountain Geyser, which is located on the Firehole Lake Drive down near Fountain Paint Pots. I arrived at the visitor center at about 9:00 a.m. and saw the eruption was predicted for 9:00, plus or minus about two hours. So I drove up to see if it had gone yet. It hadn't; I waited about an hour before it finally went, and when it did, the best part of the eruption was obscured by the steam. It's still one of the prettiest geysers in the park and probably my favorite.

From there, I headed out the west entrance to West Yellowstone, Montana. I got to see lots (and I do mean "lots") of bison (and baby bison) on the way. Lunch in West, with a stop at the railroad museum and time spent wandering around all of the souvenier shops before heading back into the park.

The baby bears were at the West Thumb Geyser Basin.

It was just dumb luck that I got to see them. All of the bear watchers were on the lower loop road near the parking lot, and I just happened to look down that way as I drove past. So I turned around, went back, looked through the trees and there they were. Huge grizzly sow with her two little cubs. Little being a relative term. They're already pretty good size, but when they were next to their mother, they were just tiny! And so cute! I couldn't get a shot with both cubs in it, and I was in such a hurry to get out of the car, I didn't grab a second memory card, so I finished the one that was in the camera and had no more space when they finally were together and visible for pictures. Oh well. Next time.

A Little Excitement

Doesn't take much to get the whole dorm excited. Just a big male grizzly wandering past the dorm will do it.

Yesterday, it was a sow with two cubs behind the dorm then later up at the employee RV park that had people talking. Someone even managed to get a picture of them (those cubs are pretty darn cute). This morning, while maybe a half dozen people were standing in front of the dorm, the big male came strolling past, twenty or so yards away from where we were standing. He never even looked our way (he'd have had to be deaf not to know we were there). He just wandered past and turned down the path that leads past the small RV park and disappeared.

Maybe an hour later, on the way to lunch, we saw an agitated cow elk trotting along the road and heard that the bear was sniffing around in the woods, probably looking for her newborn calf. She's started charging people trying to walk on that path to and from work today. She's pretty upset about something (maybe the bear found the calf?).

Needless to say, there will be many of us driving back and forth to work for a while.

Opening Day

Grant Village opened for the season at 11:00 a.m. today. I survived.

We were actually fairly busy this morning first thing, which really kind of surprised me. I never really thought that people would expect to check in anywhere that early in the morning, but with it being opening day, I guess they figured there'd be no problem with getting a room.

Of course on opening day with nervous desk agents, we had to have the opening day computer glitch. I was right in the middle of checking someone in when the computers froze. Not fun. But, we were quickly back up and running without any further problems.

It's an early day for me tomorrow...6:15 a.m. start. I'm hoping for a somewhat quieter morning so I can run all of my reports and do all of the things that a senior GSA is supposed to do. I felt a little scattered today. It'll get better. It'll get better. :o)

Pictures!

Betcha thought I was never going to say this, but...

There are now pictures available from Yellowstone! I posted wildlife shots this morning. Enjoy!

North America's Serengeti

Yeah, yeah.... I'm way behind in my posts already. I have to blame that on the inconvenience of internet access during training. I'm now settled into my room at Grant Village, and I have wireless access in my room. So now I can catch up.

Last week, Wednesday, May 16th, was my day off. I took off for the day with my camera and a friend from training, and we headed over to the Lamar Valley which is located along the park's northeast entrance road. This is probably the best place to see wolves. And guess what? We saw some.

We were lucky enough to see from a very long distance a grizzly bear trying to chase a black wolf away from a carcass the bear had on a sand bar. They ran all over the sand bar, or rather the bear ran, the wolf just trotted a short way out of reach of the bear, and while they ran, a coyote came in and got his fair share of the food.

We saw wolves close to the road no more than a mile or so away from the grizzly/wolf kill site. The gray alpha male had an elk carcass in the river that he kept coming in to feed on. There were two black wolves that refused to cross the road--the ranger identified them as yearling females from the gray's pack, but I never did find out which pack they all belonged to.

Grizzly bear number two appeared at Elk Creek--big, beautiful bear. He was wandering through the dead trees looking for good logs to use to scratch his back.

Lots of bison, lots of baby bison, but still no baby bears. Starting to get a little bummed about that.

Today was a trip through the Tetons into Jackson, WY. A very nice girls' trip into town on our day off. We're all glad we moved down yesterday afternoon instead of waiting until today. We saw two moose on our way back. Yay! They DO exist!

I'm H-e-e-e-e-e-e-r!

Well, I made it. Easy drive on Wednesday, good weather until about Ashton, Idaho, when I started to get rain. Sometimes heavy rain. Off and on until almost West Yellowstone. I arrived in West about 4:30, stopped for a sandwich at Subway, then headed into the park. Seven miles in, there is (wait for it) Seven Mile Bridge over the Madison River. And at Seven Mile Bridge I saw my first elk. Looked like a good place to stop and have dinner. Of course, it started to rain. But not just rain. Thunder and lightening were to be had as well. And it rained until I nearly reached Norris Geyser Basin.

Okay, now everybody, go find your Yellowstone map. It's on the web. Don't worry, I'll wait for you.

Got your map? I saw my first black bear .25 miles above the Upper Terrace Drive at Mammoth Hot Springs. Yes, I said my first bear.

Thursday morning, I headed toward the Lamar Valley. Bear number 2 was located about four miles or so east of Undine Falls. Now, I have to tell you where this bear was. I have no idea how anyone found it. It was kind enough to be next to a wide turn out. Actually, it was below the turn out, down in the gully, sleeping under a tree. It was a really pretty cinnamon color--the first cinnamon black bear I've ever seen.

The first baby bison of the trip appeared at Phantom Lake. There were eight cows, and three of them had little orange versions of themselves practically velcroed to their sides. So incredibly cute! Haven't seen a lot of baby bison yet (maybe a dozen out of all the big herds I've seen), but there will be more and more of them over the next few weeks. No baby elk yet; it's just a little bit early for them, but the pregnant cows look like they're about ready to pop at any moment.

Saw two coyotes (one at the Specimin Ridge trailhead, one across the NE entrance road from the Lamar Ranger Station. Also saw about a dozen pronghorn antelope in Lamar Valley.

Bear number 3 was almost exactly half way between Mammoth and Norris. Another black bear, but this one was giving a herd of cow elk something to think about. I saw this bear as I was headed to the lake. But to get there, I had to backtrack through Mammoth to the road cutting across the center of the park because the east upper loop road was (and still is) closed. I think it opens Memorial Day.

Yellowstone Lake still had ice on it, but it was cracking, and I heard today that the ice had all washed under Fishing Bridge yesterday.

Checked in Friday morning to start work. Before orientation, I started meeting some of my future co-workers. Met most of the rest of them at lunch, and our cabins are all pretty close together. Five of us took off before dinner and went on a short hike to Wraith Falls (still have that map handy?). It's five miles east of Mammoth, and a quarter mile walk. We saw three bull elk well on their way toward a nice rack of antlers, two bison, I don't know how many Uinta ground squirrels, and two yellow-bellied marmots.

Training started this morning, and it is so far going well. The computer system is pretty antiquated -- AS400 systems, all menu driven. I'll be training in Mammoth for 10 days, though one day is a day off and one day we're taking a tour of the park: Yellowstone in a day, which is the same tour that the park visitors get to take. Moving day to Grant is May 21, but since I've found a place with internet access (high speed wireless, no less!), I should be able to make regular updates here. I do have lots (and lots) of pictures, but I haven't processed any of them to put on the web site yet. That might have to wait a little while. I now have to go do homework to prepare for tomorrow morning.

TTFN!

The Adventure Begins

Well, here it is, my last few days before summer vacation. Ooops, I mean, my last few days before beginning my new job.

If you don't know, I'm going to work in Yellowstone National Park as a guest service agent (desk clerk) at the Grant Village Lodge. Yes, I am disgustingly excited. Who wouldn't be excited to have the opportunity to live and work in such an incredible place? Grant Village is located on the south western shore of Yellowstone Lake, right on the road to Grand Teton. I'll have so much to explore during my time off, both in and out of the national parks. I have several flash cards for my camera, a ginormous hard drive in my laptop, and lots of blank DVDs to write pictures to. I think I'm prepared.

I've sold my house, and though closing isn't scheduled until the end of May, it is pretty much empty now. My storage unit is pretty much stuffed. I just have a few odds and ends to pack up and cleaning to do, and it's ready for the new owner. I can't believe I sold it so quickly...only on the market five days when I received the offer. So many houses sit on the market for what seems like forever before they sell. I guess I'm just lucky (and having an awesome house didn't hurt).