Driving to Gardiner

The small town of Gardiner, MT is located 5 miles north of Mammoth Hot Springs. I drive here pretty often to buy groceries at the Food Farm, the only grocery store in town. Gardiner has zero traffic lights, only one stop sign, and only one chain restaurant - a Subway that is located in one of the 2 gas stations in town. There is a post office, 4 churches, and several gift shops and rafting companies.

However, the drive can be pretty exciting. You never know what you'll see.

On one trip, there were big horn sheep on the cliffs over the Gardner River.

Another time, I saw this wolf on an elk kill at the Chinese Gardens on the Gardner River.
As soon as the wolves are full and walk away, the birds descend. Just so happened that an EAGLE is in the area.

James' Visit - Day 5

We drove the Old Road to Gardiner and went to the Town Cafe for breakfast. There were so many wildflowers in bloom.

After breakfast, we headed to the geyser basins near Old Faithful. The first stop was the Fountain Paint Pots:

These were at Black Sand Basin:

We took the Fountain Lake side road and arrived just as this geyser was errupting:

As we headed back north towards Roosevelt, we stopped here at Sheepeater cliff:

On the Mammoth-Roosevelt Rd, this coyote was walking down the road. Both ears had what appeared to be stickers (I guess they were tags). An orange on his right ear and a green one on his left ear.

We checked into our cabin at Roosevelt Lodge and then drove out to Lamar Valley. Near Soda Butte, there was a large crowd of people stopped at the pull-out along the road.

We stopped, too. There were 2 wolves chasing a baby antelope!!! The mama and daddy antelope were chasing the wolves, running into and bumping the wolves a couple of time to try to distract the wolves from the baby. They would come closer to where we were standing, then run far off, then come close again as the crowd would gasp and cheer on both the antelopes and the wolves!!! It seemed as though the wolves gave up on the baby antelope - we thought the baby antelope was safe as they headed off to our right while the wolves were off to our left. But, NO!! There were two coyotes lurking in the sagebrush and attacked and killed the baby antelope.

James' Visit - Day 4

After breakfast at Canyon Cafeteria, we headed towards Old Faithful. Along the way, we stopped at the Artist Paintpots where the mud is boiling: Then, we drove down a little side road where there was a large bison herd. There were also two flocks of geese playing follow the leader:

We went on to Old Faithful geyser and went into the Inn for a little while. Then, we headed up to Mammoth Hot Springs and checked into the cabin. I showed James where I live and work. We drove the Upper Terrace Drive and viewed the terraces and hotsprings. Then, we went to Subway in Gardiner and got sandwiches for a picnic. Had a picnic at Lava Creek and drove out to Lamar Valley. Along the way, we took a side trip along Blacktail Plateau Drive. I'm glad we did because at the end of it, we saw a black bear:

Also, we drove down to the petrified tree:

We stopped here at Soda Butte in Lamar Valley to watch a couple of wolves out in the meadow.

Trout Lake Trail

After the Osprey Falls hike, I hiked Trout Lake latter that night with a group from the Employee Recreation Department. Along the way, we spotted some elk who are beginning to get a good set of antlers:

The hike to Trout Lake is a short one; probably 1/2 a mile. We walked around the lake (it would be a pond back home). ;) Canadian Goose:

We also witnessed an oprey dive down and snatch a fish out of the water. It flew over our heads, and we could see the fish dangling from the osprey's claws.

The ride back to Mammoth was very eventful. We stopped at watched beavers swim, eat, and cross the road.

Two wolves crossed the road in front us, as well.

Drive

First of all, let me say that I am kicking myself once again for not taking my camera with me on the hike last night. There was about 25 of us that went on a Full Moon Terrace Hike. The full moon popped out over Canary Springs and it was amazing. But none of you will see just how amazing it was. Sorry!

I haven't posted much this past week. We have had some rain in the evenings when we usually go for our walks, so I haven't been out and about much this week. I was feeling restless and stir-crazy this afternoon and decided to take a drive tonight. Rebekah went with me and we headed out towards Roosevelt.

There are a few dozen people in the park known as the "Wolf Watchers". They can be spotted pulled off the road with big, expensive viewing scopes watching wolf packs off in the distance. We spotted a couple at a pull-off, so we stopped. If you ask, they usually are glad to let you look through the scope, but we didn't ask at first. We were standing there admiring the view and listening to them talk. Apparently, there was a wolf den off to the left, and a black bear with 2 cubs off to the right. I was looking to the left towards the wolf den when I spotted something black move beside a tree. I pointed and asked if that was another bear. This bear was way off in the distance (too far away for me to get on my camera). The guys turned their scopes in the direction of was pointing, and sure enough, Rebekah and I had spotted a bear with our naked eye!!! ha ha

So, I guess we had earned their respect, and they offered us the chance to look through their scopes. I could see the black I spotted, as well as the mama bear with the cubs. I never really could pick out the wolf den. Apparently they could see wolf pups inside the den moving about ever now and then.

We didn't stay long with the wolf watchers. We headed on to Roosevelt. The road was open past Roosevelt to Tower Falls and we headed in that direction. Just past Roosevelt corral, a black bear crossed the road:

Then, we came to Calcite Springs Overlook. This was a really pretty spot:

On the way back, I snapped a picture of this crane, mostly because I thought Emily and Bradley might enjoy looking at this picture. They love looking at pictures of animals.

The sun was setting as we were driving back to Mammoth. I do believe this is the first sunset picture I have taken. This picture does not do it justice:

I wanted to take this drive to see a baby buffalo. I feel like I am the only one working here that hasn't seen one. To show how spoiled you get living here, I saw 3 bears, a wolf den, and herds of elk and buffalo on this drive but was disappointed because I didn't see a baby buffalo!!!

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

After breakfast, Rebekah, Denyse, and I headed down to the Lava Creek trailhead which is below the Mammoth Hot Springs campground. We have been hearing talk that some wolves were in a den next to the campground. We pulled up at the trailhead and got out of the vehicle when we heard a wolf howl. We looked across the road, and sure enough, saw this wolf beside the tree:

We watched the wolf until he finally walked out of sight. We headed out in the opposite direction down Lava Creek trail. It winds down to the Gardner river. (The river has no i in the spelling, the town does).

When the trail comes to the river, it veers to the left towards a place called Boiling River. It is actually just a place where there is a boiling hot spring beside the Gardner River, and the hot water flows into the river. The combination of the cold river water and the hot spring water make a perfect swimming hole:

I am SO coming back to this place this summer!!

We walked farther on the trail headed towards Gardiner when Denyse spotted a kill. A buffalo had been taken down by a wolf. We looked around, and sure enough we could see a wolf way off in the distance, across the road on a hillside:

YIKES! In reality, we weren't really that close to the wolf (I zoomed in)! We started hiking up the hill towards the main road. There were wolf watchers with big viewing scopes along the road, and they let us look through their scopes. I took a couple pics:

There are wolf tracks everywhere. The one below was along the edge of the road. They are big prints. It was bigger than my hand:

We walked the road back to where the vehicle was parked, and Rebekah spotted a coyote to the left of us:

When we got back to the vehicle, we decided to head to Old Faithful so we could walk along the boardwalks. All the trails close to Mammoth are either snow covered or muddy from melting snow. Along the way, we spotted a grizzly in the same exact spot we saw the grizzly on Wednesday. So, it was probably the same bear:

We arrived at Old Faithful and took the 3 mile loop back to Morning Glory Pool. Along the way, we saw buffalo enjoying the warm steam from all the thermal activity:

Morning Glory Pool:

After eating a burger in the Geyser Grill, we headed back to Mammoth. We watched a coyote stalking it's prey, a Canadian goose. The goose got away. It's a little hard to spot the coyote in the snow:

We also saw a Bald Eagle sitting in a tree along the Madison River. Beautiful!

We got back to Mammoth around 4:00. Had dinner in the EDR, and then Rebekah and I went to Ginny and Megan's room to watch 27 Dresses.