Mesa Falls, Id

I have been told by many that Mesa Falls is very beautiful and without the crowds you find at Yellowstone.

Located Outside of Island Park, ID it is not a very far drive from West Yellowstone.  There is a upper and Lower Falls, the water comes from Henry Fork of the Snake.  

Decided to get a video of the falls.

After Mesa falls we went to Big Springs, this is where you can see a spring come up from the ground and turn into a river, something like 130 million gallons an hour. I thought we would see water boiling up very violently from the ground but what we saw was a very mellow spring that was coming from the ground in several places.

Dunnraven Pass, Upper and Lower Falls

July 17th

Today we went over Dunnraven Pass and I took them to the Upper and Lower Falls.  We have been here 2 months and have only seen Grizzly through a spotting scope.  This guy was 30 feet from the road.  Which means I had to crop to remove all the people that were 20 feet from the Grizzly.  I shot this with my new G9 what a great point and shoot.  

 Here we are at the Brink of the lower falls.  It is hard to believe that a whole river falls over this cliff 109 feet high. There is such a massive amount of water going over it is awesome.  

Here is a video of the water that is located behind us.    Then we went over to the Lower Falls which is 300 ft high.  

 Brink of the Lower Falls was closed do to road maintenance.  It quite a hike to get to the brink 

of the lower falls and then you would have to hike in from the Canyon Visitors center. The view you see from Artist Point is probably one of the most photographed spots in Yellowstone.

Second Day of Visit

We got up at 3:00 am this morning to show Jimmy and Mary the Lamar Valley wolves.  We got there and instead of hills full of spotting scopes that we had talked about there was no one in sight.  I thought to myself I should have stopped and talked to ranger Rick to see what is going on.  When I got back to where he was parked he to was gone.  I felt bad that my guest was not going to be a part of the search from the wolves.  After looking up and down the valley we decide to head over to Hayden Valley to see what we could see.  When we started by Slough Creek we saw all the people that were absent at Lamar Valley.  They said there were two wolves that came by at 6:00 am and they had not seen them since.  We looked at some Big horn sheep that even through the high dollar spotting scopes seemed far away.  After that we took a vote and decided to go to Hayden Valley.  After leaving the Slough Creek camp ground road we noticed cars stopped on the road toward Yellowstone bridge, we pulled over and parked and watched 3 coyotes harassing a black Wolf.  We knew that probably there was a coyote den near and they were trying to get the wolf to move on, a move that would only happen to a single wolf.  The Black wolf had a collar on so it was a alpa male from the Slough creek pack. 

We had a good day went to the Lodge at old faithful and watched the geyser explode on time.

Went into the lodge and found the lighting to be to dark for a hand held shot with my G9 so decided to wait for the 5D and tripod.  We were all tired and other than stopping by  a road side sign or two for pictures we went to the house.  

Company Comes to Yellowstone

My cousin Jimmy and his wife Mary came up from Fredrick, Ok. to visit us and see the Greater Yellowstone.   Our first day out we saw Bull Elk, A Grizzly, Black Bear, Bison, Mule Deer, and we belive Mary saw the back side of Big Foot.  We went from the West entrance to Canyon Village over Dunnraven Pass to Tower falls.   We covered a lot of area by car and walked into the Upper Falls over look and some thermal features.

We were once again amused at the way people get as close as possible to wild animals. There was even one gentleman that climbed up the hill to get a closer shot with a 100-400 lens.

The bear you see at the left was 20 feet from the bottom of the road that makes up Dunnraven pass.  There were at least 25 men, women and children that close.  It was hard to get out of the car and be the required 100 yards due to the width of the pass itself and the down hill side being so steep.

This young Bear was not a bit concerned about all the people that was close real close.  From what I understand its this bear that is use to humans presence that is the most dangerous.  Liz called the Ranger station to report the bear on the side of the road, so hopefully  there won't be a accident and the bear is put down for someone else's ignorance. 

Jimmy brought a nice pair of binoculars that we used to get a close up on the wildlife and water falls.  We had a good time visiting and running around Yellowstone.

Fishing on Hebgen Lake

Liz and I went fishing again and this time took the net.  We each caught two huge Rainbow Trout. Unfortunately we had technical difficulty with the camera so all I can post is a picture of the fish after we cleaned them and froze them. 

HorseBack Riding

Liz  made me go Horseback riding yesterday. As usual they gave me some big half draft horse named Goliath.  I am not to sore today where you can see it anyway.  We have to do the run into Idaho Falls tomorrow  so Liz can be seen by the dentist.  Four hours round trip!

Forth Of July In the World Famous Beaver Den

We spent the 4th with our friends at the RV park.   We helped set up for the party and made the Mississippi Mud desert.  For the most part I made the desert and set up the bar, my expertise.  There was plenty of food and drink.  A good time was had by all.

Eileen and Tudi with there official work shirt and unofficial drink. They are a few fries short of a happy meal :) I like them.  I Eileen is the manager and seems to be up all the time.

Eileen 's mom has been here for a few weeks she keeps us company on the party days when we are doing party preparation. Her and I have talked about everything from politics to family.   I keep trying to get her to tell me embarrassing things about Ilene, she is won't budge. 

Forth of July Parade

This is the annual forth of July parade.  Of course this happens after the party when everyone has on their the parade regalia.  They were throwing hoho's and cup cakes to the kids.  This is what happens when you hang with full timers.

This is Buddy and his wife Elaine with Pinky in the rear.  We have been trying to hook up with them to go hiking but with them working 40 + it hasn't happened yet.  They did a stint in our favorite place Durango.

Sage Creek Trail, Gallatin National Forest

After all the parties for the forth we decided to hit the trail again.  We had met the supervisor for the Earth Quake Lake Visitor Center and told her of our mud and snow expedition. She suggested that we hike the Sage Creek trail.

The trail started out like most uphill.  I kept asking Liz didn't she say this was flat meadow.

Once we got 3/4 of mile to the top it was beautiful.  This trail runs next to the Elkhorn Dude Ranch for about a mile,  With beautiful views of the valley that Sage Creek is flowing down.  

After we walked in about 1 mile we heard a cow bell, we then saw a herd of horse's from the dude ranch next door.  I kept asking Liz if she could see which horse had the bell on it, she though it was a wind chime.  I couldn't see a wind chime put up in a pasture.  It was cool to see the horse's in such a beautiful pasture.  

It wasn't long before we found the source of the bell a quarter horse had it around its neck for location purposes I guess. 

We are always surprised going through public land how much it doesn't seem to be

 public land.  We had to go through fence line and gates to follow the trail.  It looked more like Elkhorn pasture land than public land.   These two horses on the left our on your public land with gates and fence.   The flowers don't show up very well but these meadow would take your breath away.  

This was our first glimpse of Sage Creek, 

was still running fast and dirty from the snow melt.  Once in the valley we followed this creek the rest of the way up.  We didn't get attacked by misquotes as much as we thought we would. Liz read on line that a natural way to repel misquotes was apple cider vinegar.  I don't know if it worked or not but she did smell like vinegar the whole trip. lol  We meet an old guy and his father while we were going up the trail.  They had gone in 4 miles, yes that is 8 miles round trip, this guy had to be in his eighties.  I took a picture of the Mountains when we were two miles in but the sky blew out, was using the compact camera.

Fishing on Hebgen Lake

We decided to go fishing on the lake yesterday so we rented a boat from the RV park Marina.  We found out there was a boat available so we hurried and loaded what we needed to fish.  The people that are running the RV park here are wonderful, a nice lady named Tudi took us over to the boat and gave us the safety orientation, wished us good luck and away we went.

The lake was smooth  as a babies butt and we were excited about getting some fresh Rainbow trout.  We put the 6-hp motor on slow and started trolling our lures.  It didn't take long before I had my first fish on the line.  I was so excited to find out that it was a rainbow, all it needed was some butter and garlic  and we would have a wonderful meal.   But first, I had to get the fish in the boat, thats when I realized that I forgot the net.  There is no way to get a trout in the boat with out a net.  I tried to no avail, just to watch the fish jump a final time and get off.  We continued to fish and I caught another  rainbow even larger than the first and again it got off.   We decided to go back to the RV park and get the net and go back out.  We did not get another bite, but we did have fun.

Slough Creek Trail

We went by Slough Creek Campground, because we had heard from the ranger that people left their cooler out and a Bear came into the the camp. This means that there is a chance this bear may be destroyed now that he has learned to raid the campground.

It was about 2:45 pm when we started up the trail with intentions to go two miles into a ranger patrol cabin. We stopped quite a bit to admire the view.

Liz enjoying the view.


On the way in we met some people that told us about a blonde grizzly they had seen at the second meadow. We then found griz prints on the path. Anyway we just made a lot of noise and kept on walking. We got down to the Oxbow and sat down for lunch.




This is the first meadow.







Was quicker going down hill :)

Trout Lake

The Guide said it was 1/2 mile to get to the lake and that it was steep. The guide was right it was steep, but it was worth it.



This is Liz resting by one of the largest trees we have seen in the Park.

After we got to the top we decided to hike around the lake. We saw a sign that said no fishing between sign and brook inlet. Found out that the brook was just full of Cutthroat Trout.

Cooke and Silver Gate City

We went to Cooke City and Silver Gate out by the NE entrance to Yellowstone. This was a real pretty drive and our first time this way as it has just opened in the last week or so.







Lots of wonderful scenery but not much else. We read in our guide that the population is 300 during the summer and 150 during the winter.








This is downtown Cooke City. Blink and you will miss it.







This is downtown Silver Gate.

Wolfs " Druid Peak Pack "

Well we woke up at 3:30 am yesterday morning and set out for Lamar Valley home of the Druid Peak Pack wolves, 16 strong with 11 pups in he den.  As soon as we arrived we started looking for the yellow SUV we were told this was one of the rangers that specialized in wolves.  It was foggy this morning and after driving 89 miles from one side of the park to the other we were hoping it would burn off soon.  

After passing the street sign that announced we were entering Lamar Valley we started looking for anything that looked like a Wolf.  After we rounded a corner we saw at least three cars parked alongside the road including the yellow Xterra that we were told about.  Opposite the parking area on a hill ( Trash Can Hill ) about 20 feet high was a small group of people including Ranger Rick.  All had these high dollar spotting scopes, these were some serious Wolf watchers.  I set up my camera and tripod but my 400 mm lens was dwarfed by the high power spotting scopes.  Excitement was in the early morning air as people were calling out there is two a black and a gray over to the left.

  From that point it was fantastic we watched a black wolf come down from the hill behind us and join the group, after harassing a coyote.  We watched listened to these guys for hours.  While we were there we saw our first grizzly.  What I liked was the fact it was about 3/4 of a mile away.  We left our perch on top of Trash Can Hill after the wolves had moved off to the West end of Lamar valley.