Yellowstone Anniversary

Well June 9th was Jana and I's nine year anniversary.  I convinced Jana that we should go to Yellowstone National Park for our anniversary.  It was kind of special to me, because we honeymooned in Island Park and took quite a few trips to Yellowstone while we were on our honeymoon.  I had a great day spending time with my wife in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

We arrived at the park at about 11:00 a.m.  When we entered the park the lady at the admissions counter told us that there may be a delay because there was a herd of bison on the road towards Madison Junction.  We we got there the bison were no longer on the road.  We took some pictures of the some of the baby bison and continued towards Madison Junction.

Baby Bison near Madison Junction.

 

When we reached Madison Junction we decided to take the north loop.  The north loop goes from Madison to Norris, Norris to Canyon, Canyon to Tower, Tower to Mammoth, and Mammoth to Norris.  We tend to see more wildlife on the north loop.  We had a 20 min delay between Madison and Norris do to road work.  When we arrived at Norris we decided to go towards Canyon instead of Mammoth.  The drive between Norris and Canyon was pretty uneventful except for a large bison bull standing next to the road near Canyon.

Bull Bison near Canyon Village.

From Canyon we headed towards Tower.  There was still quite a bit of snow on Mt. Washburn so we saw very little between Canyon and Tower.  We did see a herd of elk and some bison, but they were a long ways off the road.  The vistas were nice and made not seeing much nice though.  We passed Tower and continued on towards Tower Junction.  We ate lunch between at a little pull off before Tower Junction.  While we were pulled over we had quite a few people stop trying to figure out what we were looking at.  At Tower Junction there was a car jam heading towards the Northeast entrance of the park.  We drove towards the jam and saw a grizzly on a open sagebrush hillside.

Grizzly bear near Tower Junction.

That was pretty exciting and got our blood pumping.  We had already decided we were going to go Lamar Valley, so we continued towards the Northeast entrance.  We saw quite a few herds of bison and quite a few antelope including this young antelope buck taking a nap.

Young antelope buck taking a siesta.

We next came to another bear jam.  This one was ridiculous, yeah there was a grizzly alright, but it was 2/3 of a mile away.  It looked like a small black dot in my 20x50 binoculars.  The cool things was while everyone was looking at the bear, there was also a herd of bison, an antelope, and elk all within view.  It was pretty cool to have that many large mammals within view of each other.  As we continued through Lamar we say more antelope, elk, bison, and this bald eagle perched near the river.

Bald Eagle in Lamar Valley.

We continued on until we reached Trout Lake.  We were going to hike up to it, but we decided not to.  We turned around and started heading back to Tower Junction.  We saw mostly the same animals on the way back through to Tower Junction.  From Tower Junction we turned west towards Mammoth.  Shortly after we left Tower Junction we ran into another bear jam.  I was driving so Jana got out to take pictures while I stayed in the car because there was no place to park.  When she got out the black bear was only about 75 yards up the road.  The bear was about 30 yards off the road down a steep enbankment.  As I sat in the car I noticed the bear coming over the rise and it walk within 25 yards of the car.  Jana got back in the car and took some more pictures.

Black Bear near Tower Junction.

 

Jana was pretty excited she had never been that close to a wild bear before.  I know that is a memory I will never forget.  As we continued down the road near blacktail we came upon the closest relative of a blacktail you can get a herd of mule deer.  We were the first people on the sceen, so the deer were pretty calm, as more people showed up they became nervous and ran off.

Mule Deer near Blacktail Plateau.

 

After we saw the deer it was pretty uneventful until we got to Mammoth.  We stopped in Mammoth to get an icecream cone.  After we ate our icecream we headed towards Norris Juntion.  On the way to norris we saw quite a few elk and bison.  We got through Norris Juntion and continued towards Madison Junction.  We had another 20 minute delay between Norris and Madison and while we were stopped I saw an american dipper in the gibbon river.  That was pretty cool.  We went through Madison Junction and headed toward the West entrance of the park.  On our way we came to herd of bison right off the road.  I got this awesome picture of this baby bison laying down.

Baby bison laying down (Yellowstone).

 

I was well pleased with how that picture turned out.  They are so cute at that age.  As we continued towards the entrance we came upon a herd of 7 elk.  It was interesting because all the elk were yearlings.  There was on yearling bull and 6 yearling cows.

Yearling bull elk (Yellowstone).

 

We left the park at about 7 p.m. and headed home to Rigby.  On the way home we saw four elk along the road in Island Park.  We had a great time and enjoyed the wildlife.  We were pretty beat though from being in the car for 11 hours.  I hope everyone enjoys the pictures.  Until our next adventure so long.

Salmon Trip (3rd time's a charm)

      My wife Jana and I finally made it to Salmon on our third attempt.  We try to take a trip to this same canyon every year, because of the cool things we see there.  The canyon follows the Salmon River so the scenery is awesome.  There are old abondoned buildings, mines, hyroglyphs, and an abundance of wildlife.  If you think Yellowstone is cool you have to hit Salmon in the Springtime. 

      We left on 4-15 at about 11:00 a.m.  Salmon is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Rigby and the canyon we go up is another 22 miles North of that.  On our way there we saw quite a few pronghorn antelope.  A couple of miles before Gilmore Summit we finally saw some that were close enough to the road to get pictures of.  These two bucks are pretty nice especially the one on the right.

Two pronghorn antelope bucks.

We also saw quite a few whitetail deer between Leadore and Salmon.  When we arrived in Salmon we ate lunch and then went and looked at some of the houses in Salmon, just for fun.  We left Salmon about 2:30 p.m. and on our way we saw a herd of over 100 elk feeding on a hillside.  We wanted to get closer to take pictures, but the only road that came close enough was a private road.  We continued on to the canyon, and stopped at the first camp ground in the canyon to kill some time.  After killing some time, we continued on up the canyon, the first thing we saw were some mule deer does and fawns about 50 yards off the road.  We took pictures and continued our journey.  Then we ran into a band of bighorn ewes and lambs and got a few pictures.  Here is a picture of one of the ewes, she was only 5 yards off the road.

Bighorn sheep ewe.

As we continued down the canyon we saw common mergansers, bald eagles, and even a snow goose hanging out with a couple of canada geese.  The canyon is so steep though that you get neck strain from looking up the steep sides.  There was wildlife everywhere we continued to see mule deer and bighorns along the canyon.

Another bighorn ewe in a different band.

A mule deer fawn trying to hide.

We stopped to get a picture of an old cabin on the other side of the river and noticed a lone deer standing on the other side of the river as well.  We took some pictures and noticed he had little nobs on his head.  If you look closely you can see them.

Mule deer buck with new antler growth.

As I mentioned above there are a lot of old buildings and mines along the river.  My wife is obsessed with the old abandoned buildings.  She contemplated swimming the river just to go see one.  Anyway we did get some pictures of some of the buildings and a mine along the river.

      Abandoned cabin and out buildings.

Abandoned mine across the river.

Sign for the abandoned mine.

All along the river we were seeing deer, elk, bighorns, geese, chukars, and bald eagles.  If you like viewing wildlife you have got to go to Salmon in the springtime.  The weather was awesome as well in the low 60's.  Salmon is a little lower in elevation then Rigby, thus most of the mountains around the canyon were bare of snow.

A beautiful mule deer fawn.

A herd of elk across the river.

A couple more bighorns on the side of the road.

The whole time I was up there I wanted to see a huge bighorn ram, unfortanately that didn't happen.  That doesn't mean we didn't see any rams it was just that they were not huge.  We came upon a band of about 10 bighorns that had three young rams in it.  We got pictures and video of these youngsters.  They were posturing to the ewes like it was mating season, it was pretty cool.

Two of  the young bighorn rams mentioned above.

On the way back out of the canyon we saw a few whitetail deer and managed to get some really good shots.  There were five total with 2 standing next to the river 2 lying down of the gravel bar in the willows and one by itself a little further up the gravel bar.

One of the whitetail does.

On the way out of the canyon we decided we should get a few shots of ourselves, we had plenty of widlife.  It was crazy we saw probably over 300 elk, 100 mule deer, 40-50 bighorns, 30 whitetails, 30 pronghorn, and 1 moose, not to mention all the cool birds we saw.  I would challenge anyone to see that much in one day going to Yellowstone.  Altogether we had a great time and I can wait to go back next year.

Jana and I with the Salmon River in the background.

Market Lake (4-4-10)

  We frequently travel to Market Lake in the spring an early summer to enjoy the migrating and nesting waterfowl.  We see a variety of waterfowl and other bird species.  I highly recommend you go to Market Lake and enjoy the wildlife.

                                                               

  We had a fun Sunday afternoon at Market Lake Wildlife Management Area. We started off seeing a beautiful cinnamon teal drake. I love this species's zubrant cinnamon color, it is one of my favorite ducks. We next saw a group of cinnamon teal and in the group of cinnamon teal was a blue teal drake and hen. We tried to pictures of them but were unable to. We then saw american coots or mud hens as alot of people like to call them. We saw thousands out coots, it was insane.  The canal that was infront of the ponds were covered in coots. Then to our shear enjoyment we saw a red-breasted merganser male, what a beautiful bird.   To our surprize he had caught a fish and it was hanging out of his mouth.  We also got an awesome picture of a american widgeon drake.We saw a few redheads and canvasbacks, but they were to far away to get good pictures of.  We also saw scaups and buffleheads.  We saw a great blue heron and got a few shots of him.  We saw about a hundred snow geese as well.  We saw a northern harrier and got a picture of her in flight.  After we left Market Lake we stopped by a slough that is close to Menan, Idaho.  There we got a picture of pintail drake.  All together we had a great time.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Enjoy,

Typicalmuley

   

  1a. Cinnamon Teal Drake

2a.  Red-breasted Merganser with fish.

3a. Great Blue Heron

4a.  Snow Geese

5a.  Northern Harrier female in flight.

6a.  Pintail and others

7a. American Widgeon and American Coots