It has become something of a tradition in my family to make a visit to Yellowstone on, or as near as possible, to her birthday (March 1).  This year was no exception.

Saturday morning we passed through the Roosevelt Arch around 7:00.  By 7:30 we had arrived at Blacktail Creek where we saw 3,  and possibly 4, moose.  How can it be possibly four?  Well, we saw three for sure.  In one of my photos, where I think two are accounted for, out of the frame to the left, there are two — one standing right in front of the other so it appears to be one moose with 4 ears and 2 butts.  Since I haven’t yet seen a moose thus configured, that photo must show 2 moose.  I do believe it was four moose — a cow, a “teenaged” bull (possibly her calf from 2010) and 2 yearling calves (calves from 2011).  However, I can’t be certain.

Here’s the young bull pulling himself out of a narrow (ditchlike) creek.  I know, you can’t really make out his antler buds, but I promise that I can when I zoom into the photo.

We only made it a couple hundred yards beyond that point, headed up the hill onto Blacktail Plateau, before being turned around by impassable drifts.  A Park Service maintenance crew was working at busting it up with a 3/4 ton pickup truck with a plow, but the rate of new drifts forming was surpassing their rate of drift busting.  We turned around.  A law enforcement office was pulling up just as we headed back.  He told us that a 10 yarder (you know, the big orange plow trucks) was on its way.

We decided that, instead of sitting and waiting, we’d drive back the other way until we saw a plow, then follow it.  We made it back to Mammoth, up to the end of the open road (at the Upper Terraces), and were back down in Mammoth again before a plow headed out.  We followed shortly thereafter.  We had to wait briefly again at Phantom Lake for crews to clear the road, but after that we were able to proceed to the Lamar Valley without any further impediments to our travel, stopping only along the way at the Wrecker Pullout (on the east side of the bridge over the Yellowstone) to snap a few photos of a pair of young bighorn rams.

And what did we see when we arrived at the Lamar Valley?  A whole lotta white.

By 2:30 in the afternoon, my sister, Stacy, and I felt that we’d seen enough white, suffered enough windburn, and didn’t want to get stuck on the wrong side of the drifts when the plows quit running for the day (which, according to the signs, is at 4:30pm).  So, despite Dad giving us a hard time, we headed for Gardiner.

The next morning we again passed through the Roosevelt Arch at 7:00 am.

I was nursing a migraine that morning , so I was especially glad that Stacy had her eyes pealed.  She spotted a couple (not just a pair – a couple) of wolves at Blacktail Lakes.  When she first spotted them, they were doing what couples do in private.  The couple, Stacy later heard from Rick McIntyre, was comprised of a mangy male member of the Blacktail Pack and a female of unknown origin/history.

Her

Him

If you aren’t familiar with the effects of sarcoptic mange, you’re looking at it.  Sarcoptic mange is caused by a mite that burrows into the skin, causing allergic reactions, crusty itchy skin, and loss of fur.  The loss of fur leads to loss of body heat and infected animals can freeze to death.

“Sarcoptic mange was introduced into the Northern Rockies in 1909 by state wildlife veterinarians in an attempt to help eradicate local wolf and coyote populations. Scientists believe the troublesome mite that causes the disease persisted among coyotes and foxes after wolves were exterminated. Since their reintroduction into the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in 1995-96, wolves appeared to be free of mange until 2002. By 2009, half of the wolf packs in YNP were infected.”

source:  http://nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/mange_wolvesYNP

Despite his terrible appearance, this male appeared to be otherwise healthy as he led his date on a snow drift surf outing.

As for weather and visibility, oh what a difference a day makes!

Yeah, yeah…  I should have taken a photo in the Lamar Valley for a real comparison, but that migraine was crippling me when we were passing through the Lamar.  Just take my word for it:  it was bright & sunning and the visibility was great  — as long as the glare of the sun off snow didn’t blind you.

More photos here:  http://www.bigskycountry.net/ynpbirthday2012

I’m a big-time slacker. I have not made a post since early September! So, what have I been up to? Well, I enjoyed a September trip to Yellowstone. The elk were in rut at that time. My sister and I enjoyed watching a herd of elk with 20-30 cows and about 15 bulls, of which 6 where 5×5 or bigger, before sunrise on Saturday morning.  No bull had yet established dominance.  But a battle soon commenced which changed that.

Who is your money on?

If you said the bull on the left, you are right!

We found a ‘lil red doggie somewhat behind his classmates who had already darkened with maturity.  Only his head had darkened.  What a character!

In the same herd was a young bull emulating the big boys, “sniffing” at a cow.

Overall, though, that Saturday was pretty quiet.

On Sunday, my travel companion was my son.  On Saturday, while with his grandparents and cousins, he had found itty bitty frogs at Yellowstone Lake.  He was excited to return there to show me.  Being small and very well camouflaged, they were hard to spot.

(he was gently treated and promptly returned to the water)

We also enjoyed watching a mousing coyote in the Hayden Valley before turning homeward bound.

We were in for one last treat on our way home:

As fall progressed, I enjoyed more elk rut action at the National Bison Range.

I also enjoyed the fall scenery at the National Bison Range.

I enjoyed some autumn lunch-time walks around Missoula, too.

On Veteran’s Day I, rather appropriately, I felt, saw this pair of bald eagles for the first time.  I’ve seen them regularly in the same spot since.

I enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with the family and managed to get out one afternoon to check out the bighorn sheep herd that often winters west of Anaconda.

I’ve made a few birding trips to the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge, since the new year started, to get my year bird list going.

On one of those trips I was surprised to encounter a family of five raccoons active in the afternoon.

And, finally, last weekend I made a trip to Polson where, at that time, there were 6 snowy owls hanging out in a housing subdivision.  I’ve heard since that there are now 15 in the area.

I can’t help but wonder if there is a wizard or witch in the subdivision in Polson who has recently turned 11 and whose muggle guardians are trying to block owl post… The snowies there seem determined to make their delivery — and their numbers are increasing!

So that gets me pretty much caught up, as a skim over of the last few months.

I hope to return to Polson this Sunday to see if I can find any owls that want to model for pretty pictures.   Last Sunday there were five roosting on roofs and one roosting on a water tank  and none being active or photogenic.  They got active after sunset when the light was too poor for photography.  I’m hoping for better luck this week.

The snowy owl irruption of winter 2011-2012 is bringing snowy owls to places they are seldom seen.  While it’s not unusual to find a snowy owl or two around Polson-Pablo in winter, 15 in a subdivision is a most unusual occurrence.

More info on this irruption in this article (photos in this article were captured by my friend, Max Waugh), and in this great video.

When we made our first (well, first as a couple and my first) trip to Granite Park Chalet in 2009, we thought we had poor weather for the trip.  We were wrong.  Even the wintery weather and poor visibility of the day we spent at the Chalet in 2009, while colder (albeit drier), was more conducive to sight seeing than what we experienced this year.

My husband and I enjoyed the drive to Kalispell on Tuesday evening, being treated to a fantastic sunset over Flathead Lake.

However, when we drove up Going to the Sun Road on Wednesday morning, the view was considerably less enjoyable.

It didn’t bode well for a 7.6 mile hike.  Were it not for the fact that we had made and paid for our reservations 9 months ago, we wouldn’t have chosen to take a hike on this day.  Circumstances being what they were, however, we proceeded with our plans.

We drove both vehicles over Logan Pass to park one at the bottom of the Swiftcurrent Trailhead in the Many Glacier area of the Park.  My husband found being unable to see the edge of the road in the fog to be disconcerting.  That didn’t bother me, but being unable to see construction workers in the one-lane construction zone, and worrying that they’d appear out of no where right in front of me (which happened), spooked me.

After leaving one car at Swiftcurrent, we drove back up to the Logan Pass Visitor Center Parking Lot, where we waited for the other members of our party – my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.  Visibility remained short.

We hit the trail in the fog.

Walking the trail along the Garden Wall was like walking in a cloud.

Past the Garden Wall, however, the clouds lifted, patches of sky became visible, and the sun was peaking through holes in the cloud ceiling.  I became optimistic that perhaps conditions were going to improve.

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We strolled along, marveling at the wildflowers still in bloom that are usually long gone by this time of year.

During this time I actually complained of being too hot.  Repeatedly.  I removed my hooded sweatshirt from beneath my poncho and hung it on the outside of my backpack (yes, I can hear you laughing at that stupidity).  I still complained of being hot.

That was short lived.  Before long, a darkening sky and distant rumbles of thunder replaced the feeling of optimism with an ominous feeling.  The storm reached us before we reached Haystack Butte.  Lightening cracked above us, too close for comfort, thunder boomed, and we were pelted with hail and heavy rain.  We cowered against and between glacial boulders but were, nonetheless, soaked.  Then the wind picked up.  I told the others I wasn’t too hot anymore.  My brother-in-law dryly replied “I believe you.”

Following that storm, we had a respite of sun that lasted long enough to see us to the other side of Haystack Butte, the half-way point of the hike, but that was the last break in the weather we would enjoy.  More lightening, thunder, rain and hail followed.  By this time I had fallen far behind the rest of the group and so I was unable to see my husband when the scary sound of a rock slide that I could hear, but not see, poured into my ears.  Fortunately my brother-in-law and sister-in-law had passed the point where the slide occurred and my husband had not yet reached it, having stopped to wait for me.  When I caught up, we rushed through the slide area.

My camera remained beneath my poncho after that point for protection, in so much as was possible in the conditions, from the rain.  We reached the Granite Park Chalet thoroughly soaked and chilled to find that we had little in the way of dry clothing in our packs as well.  That cotton hooded sweatshirt hanging from my backpack had absorbed so much water it weighed about a hundred pounds by that time.  I had no dry shirts.  My husband and brother-in-law each loaned me one.  Thanks, guys!

The following morning the snowline was a couple hundred feet above us and the early morning views of the fresh snow through breaks in the fog were beautiful.

However, by mid-morning we were socked in fog and could no longer see more than 50 yards — often less.

We played cribbage and read in the Chalet, which I found relaxing and enjoyable, even though I didn’t win a single game.  Grrr….

Dave, one of the much appreciated chalet hosts, commented it was the quietest day they had had the chalet all season, with few day hikers and 4 reservation cancellations — unheard of!

Late in the afternoon the cloud ceiling lifted enough that my brother-in-law ventured out for a trip up to Swiftcurrent Pass, but no one else was motivated to join him.  By evening the cloud ceiling had lifted considerably and was starting to break up, promising a better day to follow.

 

Oh!  And what a glorious morning it was!!!!

After I enjoyed that wonderful pre-dawn show, I joined the rest of the crew, who had risen a bit later than me, in the Chalet for breakfast.  Then we packed up to head out.  There had been some debate about which trail to take out.  We had ruled out Swiftcurrent Trail as being too steep for the way we were feeling (my sister-in-law was having knee trouble and I was having plantar fasciitis trouble) and also because, even if we had wanted to hike it out, and despite our planning in leaving a vehicle at the Swiftcurrent Trailhead, that vehicle was useless.  You see, my husband had had a brain fart and tossed the keys for that vehicle into the glove box of the vehicle we left at Logan Pass.  Oops.  Oh well…  no one really wanted to hike out that way at that point anyway.

My husband had initially favored the shortest route, the Loop, but had come to decide by that time that he was open to the Highline Trail.  I didn’t want anyone hiking alone, so I was going to do whatever he did.  I think he was still undecided.  However, the decision was made for us when the Granite Park Ranger informed everyone who had not yet hit a trail that the Highline Trail had been closed due to a rock slide just 1/4 mile from the opposite end of the trail.  So, down the Loop we headed.  As always, I began the hike by testing the access and speed to draw my bear spray.  I found it stuck in the holster.  I had to wrestle it out with two hands.  My poncho has a kangaroo pouch so I put it there for easy access and yelled at my husband to check his, too.

As it turns out, while I may have not wanted anyone to be alone, particularly on that trail that we knew, from the Ranger, was being used by several grizzlies, I ended up hiking alone as my pace was slower than that of the others who would draw ahead of me and periodically stop for me to catch up.  The Loop is a twisty curvy trail with sections where there is thick vegetation on both sides where, as we experienced before, one can come around a curve in the trail and come face to face with a bear.  That being the case, and not wanting to startled a bear, I was making plenty of noise so they would hear me coming and move off.  I recited Robert Service poetry – The Cremation of Sam McGee and The Shooting of Dan McGrew.  I sang the University of Montana Fight Song (stopping before the last line “from the tummy of the grizzly bear”).  I was sure that I had scared off anything with ears.  Certainly my traveling companions had moved out of earshot.

As I passed through the burn areas I paused a few times to enjoy the bleached skeleton trees (I do enjoy them) and to examine grizzly skat — some old, some recent.

Then…  I rounded a corner to find myself 10-15 yards away from a grizzly bear.  He was just a couple feet off the trail.  I yanked my bear spray out of the kangaroo pouch and removed the safety, just in case, while backing up and yelling “GRIZZLY!” to alert others who might be in ear shot (I didn’t know how far ahead of me my husband and in-laws were).   When I backed up back around the bend, I was unable to see the griz but yelled “GO AWAY, BEAR!”  Then, I cautiously peaked back around the curve.  I couldn’t see the griz but knew he was still very near by but apparently heeding my request and going away — he wasn’t coming toward me, in any event.  I heard people on the trail below me but couldn’t see them, as they were around the next bend.  I was afraid that either they would push the griz at me or I’d push it at them.  I yelled out “I can hear you coming up the trail but can’t see you…  There is a grizzly bear between us!”  They yelled back “THANK YOU!”  That group and I each cautiously proceeded around curves until we could see each other.  They were about 100 yards down trail.  I had just glimpsed the griz moving out of sight up hill from the trail, disappearing into the vegetation, but still only about 50 yards away.  When that party and I came together, we stopped and chatted for a couple minutes.  I warned the hikers I met going the opposite direction to be alert and make lots of noise.  The rest of the hike was completed without further event.  .

Since we had left no vehicles at the bottom of the Loop trailhead, we caught the shuttle to return to Logan Pass then headed over the pass and then to the Swiftcurrent Trailhead to pick up the car.  At Swiftcurrent I said goodbye to my husband, brother-in-law and sister-in-law who were returning home while I was staying in the Park for the rest of the weekend.  I enjoyed a shower at the Swiftcurrent Inn before heading for the Two Medicine area for a visit to Running Eagle Fall.

On my way back to St. Mary Campground, where I had reservations for that night, I stopped for ice and food for the night, then made an early camp.  As the sun set, the sky was lit with pink and lavender and the crescent moon peaked through.

I hoped the fluffy clouds would stick around to pink up again at sunrise over Wild Goose Island but I woke to an absolutely cloudless blue bird day.  More on that, and the rest of the weekend, in the next installment…

More photos from the trip (including from the days to come) are here: http://www.bigskycountry.net/glacier_sept_2011