Up In The Hills

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2013 trip so far:  bison, pronghorn, elk, white-tail deer, Uinta ground squirrel, coyote, snowshoe hare, grizzly bear, moose, wolf, red fox, black bear, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, mule deer, llama, white-tailed jackrabbit, American badger

*Birds we’ve seen on our 2013 trip so far: osprey, pheasant, magpie, raven, Canada geese, mountain bluebird, grouse, golden eagle, bald eagle, American avocet, sandhill crane, red-tailed hawk, cliff swallow, northern flicker, Clark’s nutcracker

 

[Click on any photo to enlarge.]
 

Up in them thar hills above Gardiner is the little town of Jardine, Montana.  We had heard it was a nice little drive to get there and that the town was kind of interesting so decided to check it out.  From Gardiner, the first mile is paved but then turns into a gravel and dirt road.  Within those first couple of miles looking back down across Yellowstone into the Gardiner Canyon, the view is beautiful.

 

We’ve traveled part of this road before…to check out Eagle Creek Campground which we’ve given as a referral when our campground was full, and when we were looking for a place to bury Jo Jo last year.  We stopped along the way and
      found the knoll where we had buried her.  The big, heavy rock Russ had placed over her grave had been overturned (above), and the box was gone, so we’re pretty sure she became part of the circle of life.  There’s plenty of evidence around to indicate that other
critters have also joined the circle.  After all, this is prime bear country.  Of course, we were quite surprised to find what we believe was a bison foreleg which seemed to have been cleanly cut as opposed to having been torn apart by a bear or wolf.

 

   Located just 6 miles northeast and about 1,000 ft. above Gardiner, Jardine sits at an elevation of nearly 6,500 ft.  This former gold and arsenic mining town seems pretty remote, and there’s really not much to it though a few people still live there.  In fact as of 2010 the population was 57.  Remnants
from the mining activity are evident here and there, and apparently from what we’ve since been told, had we continued further up past the town square, we might have seen even more.  But we decided not to chance it and turned back the way we came, passing boarded houses, mine cars, and even a pretty little creek amid the lush trees.

 

Before we got very far back down the hill, we spied this red-tailed hawk perched atop a telephone pole.  We sat and watched for several minutes as he scoured the landscape and then suddenly took off, probably having spotted some tasty prey.  What a majestic sight to see as this magnificent creature soared overhead!

 

Though this has nothing to do with our trip to Jardine, we wanted to share another creature we’ve spotted this year in the park.  At Indian Creek Campground not only do they have a resident black bear sow and her two cubs, but they also have this handsome badger who loves to hang out there.  This one is only ever seen by himself,
and while some are solitary, moving from home to home, others are known to form clans called cetes that can vary in size from two to fifteen badgers.  And evidently somebody forgot to tell this fella that badgers are generally nocturnal because he’s seen out in the daylight quite a bit, but don’t worry, I didn’t get too close as they can be some nasty critters. Thank goodness for that zoom lens!

 

Yellowstone Tidbits:

• American badger: male (boar) weighs about 19 - 25 lbs., female (sow) about 15 lbs., young (cub) disperse from the family home at 5 - 6 months
• The wingspan of the Red-tailed hawk can range from 45 - 52 inches.
• Because crimes committed in Yellowstone are federal offenses, the Park contains a jail and a federal courthouse, a federal judge who lives in the park, and an F.B. I agent who is assigned to it.
• Yellowstone is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.