I had intended to post this yesterday but everyone in our house has been sick for about a week with a nasty head cold. This image was from May and is most likely a Wapiti Pack wolf, given where I saw it. It crossed the road and stopped above me on a snowbank as it scanned back in the direction it had just come. Unfortunately I haven’t been out much since the park was temporarily closed and then I had this nasty cold, but I hope to get back out more again soon.
While Yellowstone was closed, I visited a few places in the immediate area that I don’t visit often this time of year. I was thrilled to find this meadow full of White Mule’s Ear blooming. I knew I wanted to come back at sunrise, so I headed back the next morning and the light didn’t disappoint. Summer in the Northern Rockies means wildflowers and I’ve been searching for more locations such as this one.
Depending when you read this, Yellowstone National Park is either about to re-open or has reopened for the summer season again! On June 22, at 8am, the lower loop of Yellowstone re-opened providing tourists with access to all the geyser basins as well as Yellowstone Lake, Fishing Bridge, Hayden Valley, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Additionally, park officials believe they will have a modified upper loop re-opened within a couple of weeks that will provide access over Dunraven Pass from Canyon to Tower and over to Mammoth Hot Springs and then down to Norris, essentially providing access to over 80 percent of the park’s roads. The road out through Lamar Valley to Cooke City, Montana will remain closed as will the north entrance from Gardiner, Montana to Mammoth Hot Springs. The image above was taken at Biscuit Basin and is the runoff from Sapphire Pool as it snakes its way under the boardwalk. I prefer this scene in foggy conditions because then the clutter of dead trees in the background become haunting silhouettes.
If you haven’t heard, Yellowstone National Park has announced they plan to re-open the lower loop, including entrances from West Yellowstone, MT (West entrance), Cody, WY (East entrance), and Jackson Hole, WY, (South entrance) on Wednesday, June 22. The park will implement a system where the ending number in your vehicle’s license plate will determine what days you can enter the park. The details of this plan can be found here; https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/flood-recovery.htm. Not mentioned in that article, but there is also the intent to get a modified upper loop re-opened before the end of the summer season which would allow access from Canyon over Dunraven Pass to Tower, across to Mammoth Hot Springs, and then south back down to Norris.
Additional good news is that Silver Gate, and Red Lodge are quickly getting things cleaned back up and have all stated they are ready to serve tourists interested in visiting those areas. While access to Yellowstone National Park is not available, those communities provide great places for all sorts of outdoor recreation.
The photo with this post was taken a couple of weeks ago. I’ve mentioned before I love to take images of wildlife within their surroundings and when Mount Holmes can be a backdrop, we’ll that’s always special.
And in closing, here are the links again for those interesting in donating to help the gateway communities effected by the flooding.
The Stafford Animal Shelter is an animal shelter in Livingston, Montana that was heavily damaged due to flooding by the Yellowstone River. While they were able to get every animal out and to safety, the shelter itself was heavily damaged. The shelter is seeking donations to help get them back up and running.
https://www.facebook.com/TheStaffordAnimalShelter/
Many of you may have seen the house washed away in Gardiner by the Yellowstone River. That was employee housing for national park staff. Several families lived there and lost everything they weren’t able to get out. There is a Go Fund Me set up to help those families.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/loss-of-home-in-gardiner-mt-after-major-flood
And to help the Gardiner community, donations can be made at:
https://www.visitgardinermt.com
To help the Red Lodge community, donations can be made at:
On Monday, June 13th, Yellowstone National Park was hit with devastating record flooding. West Yellowstone, Montana received a record amount of rainfall over the weekend and at one time received around 36 hours of steady precipitation. With West Yellowstone receiving that much rain, Yellowstone National Park undoubtedly received equally as much since it was widespread weather system. The Yellowstone River’s previous record flow was about 31,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) but on Monday morning it was flowing at 51,000 cfs. Other rivers and streams in the northern section of Yellowstone created catastrophic flooding as well. The towns of Gardiner, Silver Gate, Cooke City, and Red Lodge were all severely impacted by this event and likely will be for some time. I’ll provide some links below about how those communities can be helped.
But it isn’t all gloom and doom and there is some good news. The past several days, I have listened in on conference calls with Yellowstone’s Superintendant, Cam Sholly, and while Yellowstone’s northern range, from Mammoth Hot Springs out through Lamar Valley will likely be inaccessible for a significant length of time, including the rest of this year, the rest of Yellowstone is largely unaffected. Yellowstone National Park will re-open hopefully as early as next week and the Lower Loop will be accessible to park visitors. It is very likely there will be some sort of system in place limiting the number of visitors into the park each day to not overwhelm park resources, but the hope is to ensure people will be able to access the park as conveniently as possible. Places like Canyon, including Upper and Lower Falls, Yellowstone Lake, Hayden Valley, Old Faithful, and Norris Geyser Basin (and Steamboat Geyser), will all be accessible to visitors and are largely unaffected by the flooding in the north. Likewise, the gateway communities in West Yellowstone, Montana, and Cody, Wyoming are completely unaffected by the flooding and operating business as usual and are ready to serve. At the same time, there was no flooding to the south in Grand Teton National Park and the town of Jackson is also business as usual. So do know, once Yellowstone re-opens in the very near future, most of the main natural features will still be available to visit.
At the same time, Gardiner, Red Lodge, Cooke City, and Silver Gate will be back on their feet at some point. While they may not have accessed restored to Yellowstone National Park as quickly as we’d like, those communities still offer great outdoor vacations with river rafting, fly fishing, horseback riding, and other wonderful activities available. So if Montana and Wyoming are in your summer plans and when those towns are back up and running, there’s no reason not to spend a night or two and take part in some of these great activities that get you outdoors and not just driving in a car through Yellowstone.
Here’s some ways to help:
The Stafford Animal Shelter is an animal shelter in Livingston, Montana that was heavily damaged due to flooding by the Yellowstone River. While they were able to get every animal out and to safety, the shelter itself was heavily damaged. The shelter is seeking donations to help get them back up and running.
https://www.facebook.com/TheStaffordAnimalShelter/
Many of you may have seen the house washed away in Gardiner by the Yellowstone River. That was employee housing for national park staff. Several families lived there and lost everything they weren’t able to get out. There is a Go Fund Me set up to help those families.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/loss-of-home-in-gardiner-mt-after-major-flood
And to help the Gardiner community, donations can be made at:
https://www.visitgardinermt.com
To help the Red Lodge community, donations can be made at:
The image above is of Silex Spring and was taken on Sunday before the floods in between rain events.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a tribute to my mother-in-law who passed away from brain cancer. This past Monday, June 6th, I lost my sister to the same disease. They both followed the same path of the past several months. As my mother-in-law hit a bad milestone, my sister soon did too. Needless to say the past year or so has been a very stressful one for my family, especially the last couple of months. In my sister’s obituary, my mom write how my sister loved horses. That brought back memories from my childhood; one of us sitting on our pony, Winnie, and my sister, sitting behind me, started sliding off. She never let go and ultimately pull me off as well. Another time when we were a little older, we rode too close to a pigsty. The horses we were on apparently were afraid of pigs and began rearing up. My sister fell off so I jumped off my horse and to and make sure she was ok. Of course our less than loyal horses high tailed it back to the barn which was a mile or so away. As an adult, my sister’s life was never easy and she faced many challenges. But she was strong and she always fought. She fought cancer for almost 6 years and refused to give up, even at the end. At first I thought about posting a horse photo to honor her life, but ultimately I wanted to share this one as the wings on the tern look like angel wings. I want to give her these angel wings.
I haven’t had much opportunity to post anything this week since things have been a little crazy. But I did finally have a fun photo shoot with some baby bison. It’s always fun to photograph them when they’re first born in April or May but I prefer to see them in June once they’re active and playful. There’s really nothing like watching bison calves playing with each other. These two were having quite a blast as they jousted and tussled about on a cool, foggy morning.
steve hinch photography 