2015 Travel West: June 6-7 Lamar Valley, Yellowstone NP

June 6-7, Lamar Valley Yellowstone National Park

Since I am enrolled in the Naturalist class in the Lamar Valley that will start at 9 am on Saturday, but 5:30AM on Sunday, Chick and I have decided to stay in the cabins at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch in the valley where the classes begin. This means taking our food to prepare and our bedding. The cabins have twin beds, heat, and light. There is a fabulous shower house adjacent to our cabin (but at night if you have to “go” you need a flashlight as the bison graze among the cabins at night).

What these logistics pointed out is another truth about traveling in Snoopy….always take your sleeping bags even if you think you don’t need them. Stuffing the bedding in pillowcases and picking carefully what we wanted for two days’ food we headed out for the ranch.

As always, coming into the valley is a marvelous sight to behold.

Chick helped move us into the cabin and get registered, and then he headed hopefully out to Trout Lake to try to catch a trout or two. Rainbow trout have become an “invasive species” in several of the park lakes, including Trout Lake, and have nearly taken over the native cutthroat. This year for the first year you are asked to remove/kill any rainbow trout you catch—release native cutthroat or cross breeds.

Unfortunately, Chick and the other fishermen there did not have to make such a life or death decisions as no one caught anything. For the time he was not fishing he took a drive to the northeast entrance and revisited Cooke City and Silvergate where we had camped some in previous years.

Chick watched a clan of barn swallows gather mud from a hole, and then fly to the rafters of a barn at the ranch to carefully construct their mud homes to raise their families in.

Barn Swallows in Mud Hole

Mud Barn Swallow Nests being built

For me the class began with a short introduction, a break to pack a lunch, and then loading onto the Yellowstone Association bus to begin our pursuit of wildlife. The class was only 10 people plus an instructor and a staff person from the Association who worried about logistics, etc. As it happened one of the students was a park ranger of 6 years whose field was history and plants. This coupled nicely with our wildlife naturalist so we had an incredible two days of class.

I discovered that Chick and I should claim the title of ‘Naturalist’ because the definition of the discipline fits exactly what we have been doing for years: Observing but not disturbing nature, investigate and questioning the what and why of what we observe, recording and researching information about the walks, taking time to quietly listen and see how Nature behaves without being in a hurry.

I will include below the images from the two day class but it will be a while before I can annotate all the wildflowers. It is truly spring here and the wildflowers are sprinkled everywhere. I have bought a book to try to get the names, but completing that will have to be an exercise when I have more time.

DAY 1 NATURALIST CLASS

RED TAILED HAWK

LAMAR RIVER

FIRST MOM BLACK BEAR MEANDERS FROM THE WOODS

ONTO THE ROADWAY

FOLLOWED BY HER THREE NEARLY GROWN (LAST YEAR's) CUBS

GROUP OF FEMALE BIGHORN SHEEP TAKING A REST

After the first day of class, Chick and I decided to forego cooking our hot dogs and have dinner instead at the Roosevelt Lodge at the entrance to Lamar Valley. What a great decision! Applewood smoked barbequed pork ribs to die for!

The morning we left at 5:30am, Chick slept in. I had a small breakfast of cheese, bread, and coffee at 5 am. We returned to the Ranch at 9 am to have a “real” breakfast (which Chick joined) , pack a lunch, and set out for the rest of the day. We returned at 5:30PM. I was pretty tired but every step was worth it. Unfortunately Chick had had another unfruitful day of fishing, but he had spent time enjoying the beauty of the park along the way so also had a good day.

DAY 2 NATURALIST CLASS