Oh, This Place, This Place

The landscapes here are amazing; even though I look at the same features almost every day, they are always different.

Friday, July 10, we had lots of storms around and lots of leftover clouds, which made for beautiful light all day.  I could not stop taking landscape pictures.

Many of the are from that Friday, but others are ones I've captured in the two summers I've volunteered here.

Early morning view on way to Elk Lake Road while we still had a little snow

Widgeon Pond

Looking across Elk Springs Creek

My favorite view on way to first bluebird box

Taken almost from the same place Friday under the clouds

Another view near area shown in previous pictures

The light on the sandhills on the north side

My favorite picture of the north, sandhills area which I've not been able to get to this year 

Corner of Widgeon Pond

Upper Lake on a sunny day with clouds near the horizon

Upper lake with a rain squall coming in

Upper Lake in the amazing light last Friday

Slightly different vista of upper lake that Friday

Taylor mountain from just west of town

And from still further west

Lower Lake between storm and sunset

Sunset over Culver Pond

On the personal front, I'm hosting my friend Teri ,a friend I met while volunteering at Malheur NWR.  We rendezvoused at Island Park and then did the Shotgun Valley Raptor Survey with Michael last Saturday.  We were finished by noon, so ate a salad at a local restaurant.  Then I suggested we drive less than ten miles further and go see Big Springs. We had a wonderful afternoon there. If you haven't heard my tale of that place, check out my blog from my last visit.

Today, Sunday,  we are about to leave to drive 100 miles around Centennial Valley to do another raptor count. Then we'll go to Yellowstone to do a lot of wildlife watching and hiking for a  few days. I'll probably still be there when this blog comes out.

Destination Optional

Last week, Cheri and Steve, the other volunteers here, invited me to go with them to Bannock State Park, which is a ghost town. The turn for it is before Dillon, the closest town with a grocery store, so the drive would be short in Montana terms, probably less then 75 miles.

The day was partly cloudy with lots of white to dark clouds scudding across the sky.  The light went from dull to pastel to bright within minutes, then changed again almost immediately,  so the entire area was constantly changing in earth colors and sky patterns.

We drove the 28 miles out to Highway  15 before the beautiful light on the mountains made us all want to stop for pictures. Steve decided to drive to an access road when we reached Lima, so we could stop and all take our pictures.  Then he decided to stay on the access road so we wouldn't have to find a way to stop for the next photogenic place.

That caused Cheri to pull out the Montana Atlas and start looking at what was near us. There was a National Back Country Byway just ahead.  It was only 55 miles long.  When we got to the intersection, we decided to detour through this scenic road before going on to the ghost town.

The road went up and over hills but mostly in between hills

Some places were rocky

Soon we were stopping every mile or less and taking many pictures at each stop. All of us are passionate photographers, so we would take off in different directions, then have to go see what the others had found that we were missing.  And the scenery was magnificent and different in every direction. We had to take long views in every direction, then focus on shorter views.

Steve worked his way down a steep bank to get great views of white water

The passing clouds and storms made beautiful light on the hills

One of my favorite shorter views

Steve climbed up to take a picture of a (probable) golden eagle's nest

Neat rocky outcroppings near the road

A very rocky area - Cheri has a picture in her sights

Sheep's Head Creek quietly flowing through a lush valley

We had lots of long views across valleys to hills

We also found old structures and ruins to photograph.  We worked as hard as we could to document it all, finally stopping for a short lunch about 2:00 PM. We saw several of the structures below.  I thought it was some kind of a hay stacker but had to research it when I got home.  It is a hay stacker. Hay is pushed on to the solid platform at the bottom, then the platform is dragged up to the top by horses pulling a rope attached to it,  and then it dumps on to the top of the hay pile.

Beaver slide hay stacker

This was a very long building - not sure what it was used for

A pretty hard shower made us stop photographing for a while and just drive, so we managed to get finished and into Dillon around 5:00 P.M. There Steve and Cheri had to fill a gas tank and to a little grocery shopping.  I bought some cherries, then a cup of Chia and read my book while waiting on them.

The rain started over us soon after I took this picture

We made a few more stops after the rain quit - this was a elk farm

 Our last adventure was to go to a little schoolhouse turned restaurant for supper. The ambiance was wonderful and the place was crowded.  But neither the service or the food was anything special.  But we enjoyed a long visit while waiting for our food. Steve had to go to his third choice because they were out of his first two choices.

Inside the schoolhouse "Calf-A"

Then we had a wild, sometimes skiddy ride home on the water soaked road and caught the last of the pink sky just as we got to our trailers.

Fire tower behind our trailers

A wonderful day!  And Steve and Chari promise that, one day, we'll actually get to the park.

(The total album of pictures from this day is in my Flickr account. 

What I Saw From the Auto Tour At National Bison Range, Part 1

Although Friday was supposed to be a rainy day, it dawned clear and I decided to take the auto tour. I thought I'd leave early, but found I hadn't plugged in my camera battery charger correctly so had to wait around for another hour until it charged. By this time it was 7:00 A.M. and the sun was already up. But since we are on the west side of the Mission Mountain Range, we don't get direct sunlight for a while longer.  Clouds were already moving in, sometimes lightly covering the sun, so the light was still beautiful along the first several miles of the tour.

The auto tour road works its way up and down for a while, then goes up steeply through a series of switchbacks.In places, it is near the boundaries of the refuge and we get beautiful views out of the refuge. At the highest point, at the end of High Point Trail, at 4700 feet and some 2000 feet above headquarters, we can see a three hundred sixty degree panorama.

It took me four hours to do the first seven miles of the tour.  Then I mostly just drove home, only stopping for big obvious things. The day got fully cloudy and I lost my light entirely.  But this will be a place I'll go often.  Yesterday, I saw my first lazuli bunting and took a picture of the first orange-crowned warbler I'd seen and heard singing. Both birds breed here along with the willow flycatcher, which I haven't seen yet. The spotted towees were also frequently singing - they just sing "teeeeeaaaaa" rather than the  "Drink your teeaaa" the eastern towhees sing. I saw one Bullock's oriole but more will be showing up.

The tour starts with a right turn from the visitor center parking lot, goes north for a few hundred yards and then turns again and travels east for about a  half mile as it starts to climb slightly.  This gives wonderful views of the refuge, the Rattlesnake Mountain Range, and the Jocko River Valley.

There are some bluebird boxes near the beginning of the tour and we have breeding western and mountain bluebirds using them, as well as tree swallows. I didn't see any of them this day but will go out looking for them soon.

A wildflower I've yet to identify

A long view to the Rattlesnake Mountain Range

View looking north up into the hills of the refuge

Jocko River Valley with the Rattlesnake Mountains and storm clouds behind it

  As the road comes near the east side of the refuge, it makes a sharp turn and travels east along Pauline Creek for a mile or two. This is an intermittent creek, but has lots of little ring-fed pools along it and lots of bushes, including serviceberry and chokecherry, grow along it. So it attracts lots of wildlife and is the place to reliably find the lazuli bunting and the willow flycatcher, as well as Bullock's oriole, spotted towhees  orange crowned warblers, and many other species of birds.  Buffalo are in the far views along here and, when we cross the next cattle guard, they could be near the road.

One of a pair of mule deer bucks sleeping in near Pauline Creek

Storm clouds forming over the Rattlesnake Range

One of the hundred (thousands?) of western meadowlarks the refuge harbors

View of the refuge lands  north of the tour road

South view down to a small pond along Pauline Creek which is hosting a pair of breeding mallards

Beautiful fresh chokecherry blooms

This bull bison was standing next to the road and eating dirt for its salts.

Another beautiful wildflower that is just starting to bloom

An  orange-crowned warbler between songs

A kiting male kestrel shows off his beautiful rust body and blue wings

 The road leaves Pauline creek and starts to climb through a series of switchbacks.  The long views are back to the east and the habitat changes to on of a forest for a very shorty while. I noticed I was running out of time and didn't stop as frequently or as long  here.  But this is the next area I really want to spend more time in.  Right at the edge of this is is the first place you can take a little hike, the quarter-mile long Bitterroot trail. I'll be back just to find all the wildflowers here and to look for bears down in the valleys, or just back in the wooded area.

 This bull liked the forest best

As you climb, there are more and more beautiful long views

View of  one of the Rattlesnake Mountains from high up

A long view way down into a valley from near Bitterroot trail

Another little, yet unknown, wildflower

One of the larkspurs

By now, I officially thought of myself as just driving back but I had to stop a few times.  The first big stop was at the place where High Point Trail intersects the road.  The only bathrooms are here. And the view is across to the Mission Mountains.  The sun was almost completely blocked by clouds, but occasionally a few rays made it out. From this point on, the trail goes downhill for the most part and sometimes very steeply. The next pictures are from these areas.

View at the High Point Trail Interpretative Area

This pronghorn male was a few miles away from the rest who mostly like the open plains  further down

A pair of Brewer's Blackbirds - the female is collecting nest material

All of these pictures were taken in the first eight miles of the auto tour.  The rest is both downhill and thrugh more plains until it runs along Mission Creek where there is another riparian area.  The deer - white and mule are found along tere as are elk, and sometimes bear and bull bison, unless the main herd is in this pasture. I got here two days before the entire  auto tour opened, so had only driven the last part of it, which is two-way during the winter.  I wrote about that evening drive here.