*Birds we’ve seen on our 2011 trip so far: mountain bluebird, golden eagle, Indigo bunting, Lazuli bunting, Say’s Phoebe, yellow-rumped warbler, Western Tanager, bald eagle, blue heron, American white pelican, trumpeter swan, osprey, magpie, mountain bluebird
[Click on any picture to enlarge…then arrow back to the blog]
It was time to head north to Yellowstone National Park (www.nps.gov/yell), one of our favorite places. Though the 2 parks are only separated by an 8 mile stretch along the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Highway, we were driving from about the center of Grand Teton to the Mammoth Campgrou
nd located at the very north entrance of Yellowstone, about 112 miles. We left Colter Bay at 6am so we could arrive at Mammoth no later than 10am since it’s a first-come, first-serve campground, and with our large unit we needed to be certain of getting a good site that would accommodate us. We encountered some heavy fog along the way as well as two 
separate bison jams in Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley. These jams are very cool the first time you experience them, but after about the first 10 minutes, you just want the bison to move off the road so you can pass! But alas, it’s their park and we are merely visitors…and with their size they pretty much can do what they want. We finally arrived at Mammoth Campground around 10:15, and actu
ally were able to get the same site we had last year. (The bull elk pictured at right was evidently tired from greeting all us guests as we came through the town of Mammoth. :-)
A couple of days later we drove past the Undine Falls on our way to Lamar Valley with hopes of seeing some wolves (34 miles one way). While at Capitol Reef, Russ had gotten a great deal on a spotting scope through eBay, and he had modified the tripod from our regular telescope to accommodate it so we were e
ager to try it out (below right). We got all set up along with several other folks, and Rick McIntyre, a Biological Technician with the Wolf Project, was there with his signal finder and indicated that at least a couple of the wolves were indeed across the way near their den behind the hill. Rick is extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and very dedicated to
the Wolf Project collecting data on a daily basis. In fact he hasn’t missed a day of watching Yellowstone wolves in over 10 years! We were excited about our chances, but it wasn’t to be. After about an hour, a storm could be seen rolling in and we all managed to get to our cars just in time as the hail and then rain came down. Though we saw no wolves that night, we did see a grizzly, 
2 black bears in separate locations, a coyote, a raven with a fresh kill, and plenty of bison. In fact on our return home, the rain had stopped and once again we were in a bison jam. But this time we rolled down the windows, turned off the engine, and heard the most amazing sounds…snorts, grunts, bellows, and low guttural rumblings. As it turns out, we were in the mid
st of the bison rut, that time of year when the males aggressively court the females and can be quite aggressive to anyone else! I took a short video with my camera so the sounds could be heard, but unfortunately the file is too large to post here. You’ll just have to use your imagination while enjoying this beautiful sunset pictured at left.On our second day at Mammoth Campground we ran into hosts Jim and Kay who we had met last year, and who had been our inspiration to venture into the world of campground hosting. We chatted for a bit with them mentioning that they were short one set of hosts because of a family emergency and wondered if we’d be interested in filling in for a month. Hmmmm, hosting at Yellowstone?? Oh, yeah!! It was something we had talked about doing but knew that the list of people who wanted to volunteer at Yellowstone was quite long. This sounded like a terrific opportunity to get our foot in the door plus we could stay in the campground longer than the 14 day limit and for free! We immediately went back to the RV, typed up an introductory letter to Ranger Allan who was in charge of the campground, and hoped we’d hear from him in a few days. However, the next morning he stopped by our site, gave us some paperwork to fill out, info about the job, and said
he’d need to check our references, etc. before he’d be able to offer us the position. He was going to be off the next couple of days but called us Mon. morning and said if we were still interested we could start the next day…woohoo! Talk about being in the right place at the right time!! We moved to a site with full hookups that day, trained the next 2 days with Jim and Kay, and then were on our own the following two days. Our schedule would be 2 days on, then off 4 days, rotating
with Jim and Kay and the other hosts, Elaine and Bill. This job is very different from Capitol Reef in that even though it was also first-come, first-serve, here they assign sites, take the money, and work from an office. I would be spending all of my time in the office registering people while Russ rode the golf cart through the campground checking on site availability, ensuring there were no rules violations, answering any questions, and generally meeting the campers. We were excited to have such a great opportunity! 
Our 4 days off still allowed us plenty of time to venture out into the rest of Yellowstone, which included a day trip to Old Faithful. There are so many sights along the way not to be missed like colorful hot springs flowing into the river below or simply a coyote leisurely walking down the road…all amazing in their own right. We were looking forward to seeing inside the new O
ld Faithful Visitor Education Center, which had opened since our trip last year. We were fortunate to arrive about 10 minutes before Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt, and it did not disappoint, sending gallons of water and steam high into the air. Afterwards we headed to the visitor center and arrived just in time for
a 15 minute film on Yellowstone, but overall we were a little under whelmed with this $27 million eco-friendly facility. It seems like there is a lot of wasted space in spite of the 4,500 square foot exhibition hall which has lots of displays explaining the hydrothermal features, the volcanic geology and history, and life in extreme environments but not a lot of interactive exhibits. The “Young Scientist” section, which is geared towards kids, does have a mechanical glass model of how a geyser works which is pretty cool. Water boils, builds up pressure, is pushed up through a constricted pipe, and then erupts into a dome covered near the ceiling.
On our way back out to Lamar Valley a few days later we spied an occupied osprey nest, but once again our attempt to see the wolves was thwarted…this time by a grizzly. He had been wandering at the base of a knoll where several people were standing (way too close!) but had moved further out into the valley by the time we arrived. Rick was there so we set up our scope and waited (patience is definitely a virtue when looking for wolves). About half an hour later Rick received a radio communication that the grizzly was moving back in our direction, which meant we all needed to slowly move back to the parking lot. Oh, well, one of these days we may get to see those wolves.
Elk are beginning to come through the campground…cows, calves, and even an occasional young bull but no big bulls yet. And we’re enjoying getting to know our fellow campground hosts better. One afternoon Elaine and Bill invited us for lunch at the Cowboy Grille, and anoth
er night we joined Jim and Kay for dinner at Outlaw’s Pizza, both places located in nearby Gardiner, MT (and neither has a website). On our way back from Outlaw’s we spotted some bighorn sheep on the side of the hill above the river, no rams with the big curved horns but several ewes and lambs. Spotting animals as we drive a
long or patiently wait is what makes us love Yellowstone so much…and timing is everything!
