Montana and it's Wildlife

 OK I know its not quite in Montana, but the rest of North Dakota was so boring to drive through that this small slice of the western edge should just be given to Montana.  I entered Theodor Roosevelt National park in a driving rain/snow storm.   The 38 mile loop road is worth the drive, especially when there is not a single other person in the park.  I did not see one other car or person between entering the gate and exiting.  Thirty-five degrees and raining does not make for the best park experience for many, but for me it was fine.

This mule deer was standing near the road.  You can see how crappy the weather was by it water soaked coat. 

 

The driving rain was also causing the park to erode before my eyes.  There were rivers of mud flowing across many of the roads, and my attempt at a short walk was ended quickly by ankle deep mud that was next to impossible to stand up in.

Now to Montana.  To be fair the weather in Montana sucked also.  The driving rain and snow continued until I got to Lewistown, Montana.  Montana has more birds along the side of the road than any other place I have been.  Unfortunately at 70mph its pretty hard to identify any of them.  Stopping was now limited since Susan and Cullen just got on the train from Seattle to Whitefish.  I had to pick them up in the morning and then we will all drive back home together. 

 The Montana winters are tough.

Natural predators the Montana way.  The main reason I have not eaten beef in 15 years. 

I spent the night in Lewistown, and woke up to perfect weather the next morning.  

Over the last couple of years one of my new favorite things to do on road trips is to stop at random small wildlife refuges along the way.  At this one we were treated to several interesting birds.

Yellow-headed blackbird

A female/juvenile red winged blackbird?

I had a conversation with a friend of mine (who is a very good photographer click here to see his work) about shooting some animals on my trip.  I mentioned that I would love to get a photo of a antelope, but that was a pipe dream since you can never get close enough to them to shoot good photos. 
Prior to this photo I had never seen one up close and it took me a couple of seconds to figure out that it was a pronghorn antelope and not a deer.  I was really struck by the tone of these animals and how stocky and muscular they are.  From a distance they have always looked so sleek and thin. 

Pronghorn Antelope

My last photo of the day.   

Medowlark

Juvenile golden eagle

I finally arrived in Whitefish a few hours late to pick up my wife and our five week old son.  The White fish train depot is a beautiful building.

Aldo Leopolds Cabin in the Woods

For the last few days I have been driving across the country in a new vehicle that I bought in Detroit.  I had never driven through Minnesota, or Wisconsin, so I decided to take the northern route across the country.  Most of the time when i travel I do not plan where to stop or what to see, and most of the time this works out.  As I drove through western Wisconsin I decided to stop for lunch at a wildlife area that looked like it had some potential.  I mostly wanted to see a sand hill crane.  I did along with some other birds and an otter(I think).  As I left to get on the road again I ran across the Aldo Leopold Center and decided that there was no way I could pass up this opportunity.  Aldo Leopold of course wrote the book a Sand County Almanac which was one of the first books I read, and one that had a profound influence on me. 

This is the cabin where he wrote his book. 

AAI Denali Prep Course. How Much is Too Much Snow?

I just got back from a Denali Prep trip.  These trips are usually a lot of fun and often make for some great photography.  This trip however got a bit old.  Not really the trip so much as the weather.  There is only so much time you can spend in a tent without going crazy.   For this trip that number is three days.  Of course we were forced to get out of our tents every now and then to dig out snow so we did not get buried.

The hike in consisted of dragging heavy sleds to a camp near the base of Table mountain near the Mt. Baker Ski Area.  This is great Denali training since Denali consists of dragging heavy sleds through the snow.  Once there we built a camp. Building a camp is a key Denali skill.  We created tent platforms and built walls around the camp so wind would not crush our tents.  Wind however was not going to be an issue on this trip.

After cooking dinner it was tent time.  I was looking forward to this since I have a one month old child at home, and there was nothing that would wake me up here in the mountains...  At some point in the middle of the night I woke to the side of the tent pressing against me and realized I was being buried alive by constant snow fall that had been falling since I put the tent up.  So much for uninterrupted sleep.  I got my boots on and dug the tent out.  Perfect Denali training!

Morning came, and it sure seemed a little dark, even for 6am.   Once again I am buried.  I tunneled my way out of the tent, this time with the camera and shot this.

Due to the very heavy snowfall we decided to not move our camp today and just work on camp mantinence since it looked like it would be an all day job.

I spent most of the day in the tent and the rest of it digging.

The next morning.

Another day of heavy snowfall so we continued to dig camp.  The next morning. 

We now estimated that we had 3 meters of snow.  If the wind picked up we would have no chance of digging out our tents.  It was time to leave.  That however was easier said than done.  Moving in snow that deep is very difficult and very tiring.  There was also a real threat of avalanche.

It was still snowing hard as we made out way out and I shot this.

After hours of wading though sometimes chest deep snow we made it to the ski area and were able to move down the groomed run to the car.  45 minutes of digging later, the car moved and we were on our way back to Bellingham to learn the technical skills needed for Denali.

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