Little Bighorn (Hardin, MT 07-25-12)

Like the words “remember the Alamo”, I think most of us know the words “Custer’s last stand” and the “Battle of Little Bighorn”.  Not being a huge history buff myself, I admit I didn’t know that much about Bighorn or Custer- before today, anyways. And, not being a talented history writer, I won’t delve into too many details, but will try to condense the story down into a couple of paragraphs.  I am sure my brother and my son, the  history buffs in the family, will cringe.
George Custer was well known for his military exploits during the civil war.  He fought in the first battle of that war, First Battle of Bull Run, as well as the battle of Gettysburg, and was present at the surrender of General Lee at the conclusion of the war.  He was then sent west to fight the Indian Wars.
So, what led up to this battle?
At that point in time, most American Indians were living on reservations, but had “permission” to roam further west, in the Unceded Territory, hunting the more plentiful game.  Part of the the Lakota (Sioux) Reservation included the Black Hills of South Dakota, an area so important to their culture that as part of the signed treaty, the Black Hills could never be inhabited by white settlers.
In 1874, with the Euro-American economy in a mess, Grant sent Custer to investigate the rumors that the Black Hills were full of gold.   Unfortunately for the Sioux, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, there was gold, causing the area to be overrun with Euro-Americans.  The ioux and Cheyenne began leaving the reservations, attacking the settlers, and pressure was put on the government to punish the “hostiles”.  After giving the Indians a month to comply with an order to return to their reservations, the army was sent to deal with those who refused.
    On June 25th 1876, the 7th cavalry, consisting of about 600 men, and led by Custer, discovered a Lakota village along the banks of the Little Bighorn River.  Scouts had informed Custer that this was a huge village, and that, by the way, the Indians had seen the tracks of the cavalry, so were aware that they were closing in.  Fearing that the Indians would flee the area, Custer made the decision to attack immediately. 


Little Bighorn Battlefield



the headstones read "____fell here on June 25 1876,  while defending the Lakota way of life"

He divided the regiment into 3 groups, each section approaching the village from a different vantage point.  Instead of running, the Sioux warriors  met the  soldiers head on.  In fact, had Custer paid more attention to the scout, he may have devised a different plan, because in fact there were almost 8000 Indians, more than 1500 of them warriors. 
The two groups led by Major Reno and Captain Benteen were both overpowered and were quickly pushed back.  Neither leader could find Custer, and ordered their troops to withdraw. 

In the meantime, Custer, whose exact movements have never been determined, was also repulsed and pushed up onto a small hill, where he took his “last stand”.  Cheyenne Chief Two Moon later recalled that “we circled all around them- swirling like water around a stone.” Custer and all of the soldiers under his direct command, including his brother, were killed.

When the Indians realized that reinforcements for the troops were on their way, they themselves withdrew and disbanded.  Although the battle was a decisive victory for the Indians,  within a year or so, most of them were back on the reservation or had moved into Canada.  In the end, they lost their way of life and their sense of freedom.

Not Every Day Can Be a “10” (Glacier NP 07-21-12)

Someone said that to me not that long ago, and of course, it’s very true.  We had a day that certainly wasn’t a ‘10’ the other day.  We got up early to drive up Going to The Sun Rd. to Logan’s Pass, so we could snag a parking spot for our enormous truck.  We planned on doing a hike at the peak, then driving down the other side of the mountain to see the sights. 

We made it to the parking lot ok, and got a spot, but there was a “road closed” sign blocking the rest of the road.  Some people may have heard about the rock and mudslides in Glacier.  Apparently there were 12 mudslides that impacted Going to The Sun Road.  After watching video footage, it’s amazing no one was killed.  The slides had happened the day before, but we had no idea how bad they were.  Actually, the road was closed for more than 2 days. 

So, with the road closed we headed to the hiking trail, only to find out it was closed too- due to snow.  Next we tried the Visitor’s Center, but apparently the rangers live on the wrong side of the mountain and couldn’t get there to open it, so… we needed a new game plan.  We decided to go to Canada for the day.

We went home to get our passports and headed for the border. Once we were in line, waiting our turn, Paul said “uh oh….the firewood.”  The bed of our truck is PACKED with firewood.  Of course, one of the questions from the Canadian Border guard was…..do you have any firewood?  Once we answered in the affirmative, he said-no problem, we can dump it off to the side and go on our way.  Paul said “nope” it isn’t worth dumping, we’ll just turn around and go home.

So the nice border guard called the American side to let them know that a huge F450 was headed back because of the firewood in the truck.  We get back to the American side and what we got was a lecture about carrying firewood, and an order to dump it all.  As irritated as we were, arguing with a border guard was not an option, so we unhappily dumped the firewood and went home. 

Now, on to the fun stuff…

Take Two of taking the shuttle over Going to The Sun Road.  On the way over in the morning, it would have been more appropriate to call it Going Into The Clouds Road.

 
I actually think this road is more awesome when there are clouds.

The clouds just wrap themselves around the mountain peaks and are constantly creeping and swirling.

We’ve done two more really great hikes- one was up a peak (2500 ft elevation gain) to Scenic Point for a 360 degree view:

On the way down we ran into some big horn sheep, almost literally.  These guys were really close to us.

 

For our last day, we decided to hike to an actual glacier.  Grinnell Glacier, to be exact, although we couldn’t get all the way there because the trail was closed due to snow.

We passed by three lakes on the way there:

Swift Current Lake

Josephine Lake

And, once we gained some elevation, we got a phenomenal view of Grinnell Lake:

When we looked to our right, we could see Grinnell Glacier, Grinnell Lake, and Grinnell Falls. The glacier is the largest patch of snow, on the right hand side of the picture.

After spending 3 weeks in Yellowstone, our measly week in Glacier went by way too fast.  We did get to spend a little time with our friends Dave and Nancy, who are fulltimers, and working near Glacier for while this summer, but their schedules were hectic so we didn’t get as much time with them as we would have liked.  And, as usual, I forgot to take pictures when we were hanging out with them.

Now we are on to more adventures in Montana…….

Glacier National Park (07-16-12)

If Yellowstone is known for the wildlife and geysers, then Glacier is known for their….glaciers.

 

That doesn’t mean there isn’t any wildlife though.  This is a whole family of mountain goats- parents and 3 babies.

We’ve also seen big horn sheep, a black bear and part of a moose (the antlers) and we’ve only been here two days.

Anyway, so, what actually is a glacier ( I wasn’t sure of exactly what it is, I just know that there are lots of them up north.) A glacier is a slow moving mass, or river, of ice that accumulates over the years (doesn’t melt in the summer).  Glaciers literally carve the landscape as they move.  A canyon or valley carved by a river has a V shape, whereas a valley carved by a glacier has a U shape:

In 1850 there were 150 glaciers in this park.  In 2010, there were only 25.  It’s expected that all the glaciers will be gone by 2020.

The large area of snow in this picture is Grinnell Glacier.  We hope to get a better picture of it when we hike to it.









We’ve done two hikes since we got here, and one of the most noticeable things to me has been the “smell”.  The pine forests are so fragrant, I keep taking deep breaths to enjoy it (may have something to do with going uphill, too though) I am reminded  of Christmas all day long. And when I can’t smell the pines, the air has an incredibly fresh and clean scent to it. 

Our first hike was to St. Mary’s Falls and Virginia Falls.  After a short hike of about a mile, we arrived at St. Mary’s,  with beautiful water and several short falls.

A short distance later, we came across Virginia Falls, where we stopped to have lunch. These falls weren’t as pretty, but they were much taller.

We watched two baby birds hanging around the falls- like, in the water, just on the edge of the falls themselves (the edge is a 30 ft. drop).  Every few minutes the mother would come by and feed them some bugs she caught.  We found out they are called Dippers.  They build their nests near fast flowing water or waterfalls, and get their name because they bob or dip their heads up and down.  We were wondering why the babies were doing that!

Today’s hike was to Iceberg lake and was much more of a “calf stretcher” than yesterday’s hike.  10 miles, with 1200 feet of elevation gain. Again we hiked in the pine forest for part of the hike.  Once we were out in the open, the  views were awesome. 

Iceberg lake gets it’s name because the ice on it doesn’t melt until September.  Its not actually icebergs, and although it may look cold in the picture, it was in the 70’s and we were very happy to reach the snowy area, so we could cool off for a while.

Paul also looks like he is skiing, but nope,he is just using his trekking pole to keep his balance on the snow.

It was on the way back that we saw quite a few mountain goats and some big horn sheep.  We also stopped to look for the moose that many people on the trail reported seeing.  We did catch sight of the antlers, but by then we could hear thunder and could see the clouds coming over the mountain tops, so we gave it up and picked up our pace.  With the forecast calling for a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms, we had our raincoats with us, and almost got away without needing them.  We got rained on for the last little bit, but nothing major. 

By the way, many times, as I hike, I compose my blog posts in my head.  And let me tell you, they would be ever so much better if I could actually remember anything I was thinking about later on when I actually write it!  As it is, I usually write it at night, like tonight, after hiking all day, relaxing with a beer and eating dinner. I need to put the post together because we will be doing a lot of stuff while we are here and NO ONE reads long blog posts.

PS- I started putting “recent pictures” on the right hand side of the blog.  The difference between the ones in the post and those is that they are the original size- 4-6 megabytes, and these have been automatically shrunk. So if you like to look at big pictures, click on the link and it will take you to my Picasa page. I am running out of free storage with Picasa so when I get time, I’m going to have to look for alternatives that will work with Blogger. It’s part of the reason I stopped updating my “our trip in pictures” page.

On the road to Glacier (Bozeman and Great Falls 07-14-12)

….and look who we found!!

I knew that Julie and Mike were in Colorado so I sent them a note to see what direction they were headed in.  Lucky us, they were headed west, and were going to pass by close to where we were!  We met up with them in Bozeman and spent a fun evening together before we took off in different directions the following morning.  We’ll be seeing them again in Terlingua, TX in late October for the International Chili Cook-off- l’m looking forward to having a blast!

While in Bozeman we went to the Museum of the Rockies.  They have revolving exhibits in addition to one of the world’s largest collection of dinosaur fossils.  They do a lot of research at this location as well. Jack Horner, the resident paleontologist, was an advisor on all three Jurassic Park movies.

The current temporary exhibit features Napoleon Bonaparte.  This exhibit left a lot of questions in my mind and I didn’t feel it was as complete as it could have been.  I think maybe it assumed a level of knowledge that I certainly didn’t have.  I had no idea what Napoleon had to do with Montana, and I didn’t get the answer until I got to The Lewis and Clark Museum.  Napoleon was emperor when when we purchased the Louisiana Territory from France.  The Louisiana Territory also included all or part of the following states: Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas.  It was enormous, and obviously a crucial transaction for us as a country.

  After leaving Bozeman, we headed to Great Falls, which was along the path that Lewis and Clark took and it has a great Lewis and Clark interpretive center.

In 1803, President Jefferson assigned them the task of following the Missouri River all the way to the end, looking for an easy northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  They were to document everything they saw and did. Both ends of the river had been explored before,  but not the thousand miles in the middle. Leaving from the St. Louis area, they  formed the Corp of Discovery, choosing more than 30 soldiers from all over the country who had skills that they thought would be needed along the way.

Bear in mind that they are traveling UPstream, using poles and oars to push the boats along.They made it as far as Mandan, near present-day Washburn, SD, before having to stop for the winter.  While there, they gathered information from the local Indians about what challenges they would face in the spring. They were told about the fork in the river and that they would know which fork to take by the Great Falls just a little further along the correct fork.  They also found out that they would eventually need to get horses from the fearsome Shoshone because the river would become too shallow to navigate.  And that's when they decided to hire Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea, a Shoshone who had been captured by the Hidatsa tribe.They needed an interpreter to insure that the Shoshone would trade with them. Interesting fact- Sacagawea’s name means bird woman and is correctly pronounced “Sah-KAH-ga-we-a”.

Before leaving in the spring, they dug huge holes in the ground and hid some of their supplies so that they could pick them up on the way back. 

Great Falls of the Missouri River

Once they arrived at Great Falls, they received the  first of three major disappointments along their journey. 

The Indians had mentioned Great Falls, but they didn't mention the other 4 sets of falls, all in an 18 mile stretch of river. Instead of a half day's portage around the falls, it took them almost a month, and 4 trips to lug their equipment and boats 18 miles up the steep terrain.

 
 
 






 
After surviving that grueling time they forged ahead for another two months before they climbed the final ridge of the continental divide.   They were filled with excitement in anticipation of seeing the Pacific Ocean when they reached the mountain peak.  Unfortunately, all they saw were more mountains.  As far as they eye could see there were mountains, dashing their hopes of an easy passage to the Pacific.

     Soon thereafter they came upon the Shoshone, as they expected. Here’s where Sacagawea played a dual role.  Her very presence informed the Indians that the group she is traveling with is peaceful because women would never have been allowed to travel with a war party.  And, now’s when they needed her as an interpreter.  As an added bonus, once they entered the Shoshone camp, they discovered that the Chief was Sacagawea’s brother.

This was a great exhibit, which used actual audio to demonstrate how difficult it was to communicate.  Five people were involved in the negotiations and conversations with the Shoshone (Sacagawea did not speak English).

Supplied with horses and fresh supplies, the explorers once more headed towards the Pacific Ocean.  Finally, after 18 months and 4100 miles, they arrived oceanside, set up camp for the winter, then turned around and headed back the way they came.  After passing over the continental divide on the way home, they split into two groups so that more territory could be explored.

Yellowstone- Wildlife Count (07-10-12)

I counted the wildlife for my own purposes, and I was surprised at how much  we actually saw.  Of course, being in Yellowstone for three weeks contributed to the high number, partly because we learned how and where to go to watch them.  Even with these numbers, there were many times we could have stopped to see a bear of a herd of elk but didn’t because of the crowds. The longer we stayed here, the more I felt that we were being given a unique opportunity to see these animals on their own “turf”. They were all just living their lives, trying to ignore the humans that keep encroaching on their territory. For the first week, every time we saw a “new” animal, I got really surprised, excited, and anxious to get a good view.  Later on, I got just as excited, but in a much quieter way.  It’s hard to describe.  I guess I was no longer surprised to see the animals, because I know now that they just live here, but I was happy every time their daily routine brought them close enough to me that I could observe them.
Anyway, each number represents how many times we saw each type of animal.  Sometimes it may have been the same animal on a different day (who knows?)…
Wildlife watching could be addictive, except that there aren’t many other places in this country that we can see this many animals:
Bison- too many to count
Bull Elk-lone- 4
Elk herd with calves- 16-18
Big horn sheep-1
Osprey- 1
herd of wild goats-1
moose-1
moose calf-1
Grizzly bears- 3
Grizzly cubs-1 (there were two at the same time-2nd year cubs- bear cubs stay with their mom for 2 summers)
Black bears-5-6
black bear cubs-3 (there were two cubs each time) black bear sows can have 1-3 cubs at the same time, and all can have different fathers.
howling of a wolf pack-3 (the second time we heard it was just as awesome as the first time)
howling of a coyote pack-1 (difference between wolf and coyote howl- wolf is lower tone, pure howl, coyote is higher pitched with yelping mixed in)
wolves-3
wolf- Alpha female with pups-2(needed a scope to see them, I took someone’s word for it that the blobs of fur were pups)
wolf pack (Canyon Pack) -2
coyotes-4-5
Snowshoe Hare-2
Grouse-1
Pronghorn- 7-9 small groups or single animals
fox-1
Bald Eagle 3-4
Mule deer-1
fawn-3 (the third one was alone and actually could have been a tiny elk- after seeing it, we asked a ranger and both elk and deer leave their young alone in a field with “instructions” not to move- they have very little scent to them so predators pass them by.)
Sand Hill Crane-2

Grizzly and two cubs

Grizzly

black bear

And Then There Were Wolves (Yellowstone, 07-10-12)

  

On our last day in Yellowstone we spent the afternoon prepping to leave after a 3 week stay.  We finished early and headed one last time to Hayden Valley to watch for wildlife.  We figured we might as well give it one last shot.  We felt like we were greeting old friends when we got there- we’ve spent several hours with the same people, chatting while we scan the meadow with our binoculars.  These people come year after year to watch for wolves. They eat sandwiches for dinner because dinner time and prime wolf watching time coincide. When they see a wolf, they are quick to share their scope with anyone interested.  They love to share the excitement. When we arrived, they were quick to tell us that they had seen the wolf pack, with pups, about an hour before we got there.

The area we are watching is called a rendezvous site. Once wolf pups are weaned, at about 6-8 weeks of age, the wolf pack leaves the den behind and uses 4-6 different areas to meet and watch over and protect the pups. All adults in the pack are responsible for the pups.

This particular pack is called the Canyon Pack.  The alpha female is well known here because she still, even at the age of 6 (not young, for a wolf) prefers to find and kill prey by herself.  Lately though, she has let the males help her. When she goes off on a hunt, she leaves “babysitters” behind to take care of the pups.

  After a very short time we were rewarded with the sight of the alpha female leaving the rendezvous site, which is hidden from our sight by trees.  Along with her came two pups and a few minutes later, several other other adults.  They took the pups to the water, so they could all cool off. Between our binoculars and viewing through other people’s scopes, we had a pretty good view, and the pictures I got don’t do it justice, but at least I got some this time!



the Canyon Pack, down by the water



 

We thought that was awesome, but then we noticed the small herd of elk.  They had been calmly munching their dinner, but suddenly we could see them perk up and come to attention.  They gathered together, and a few seconds later started running.



The wolves are on the right of the elk, just in the water



The wolves had decided to chase the herd!

The wolves are behind the elk now

 The wolves do that to see if any of the elk are weak or sick and don’t keep up with the herd. The elk ran through the stream to the other side, but didn’t go any further than that. They turned and watched to see what the wolves were doing.


Finally, the elk are on the side of the stream, looking back at the wolves, who are still in the water, on the left.

 The wolves weren’t giving serious pursuit, just checking to see if they could catch an easy dinner.

Once things calmed down a little, the elk started eating again, and we realized we had lost sight of the pups and two of the adult wolves.  Apparently they brought the pups back to the rendezvous point when we weren’t looking.  The other 5 wolves, including the alpha female- she is the large white wolf, headed off towards the road, on the hunt.  Paul and I decided to cross the road and climb the nearby hill to see if we could catch sight of them again, and we did. 


too bad the wolves snuck past everyone when they were looking the other way! (black wolf is in the foreground)



This is the kind of traffic jam you get when people have sighted a bear or wolf. What was really funny to us is that all of the people are looking off to the right, and if you look in the foreground, you can see one of the wolves just after he crossed the road.

 

We watched them cross the meadow and approach two bison off in the distance.  Like with the elk, they approached and tested the bison to see if they could grab an easy dinner, but in the end they left them alone and went off to seek easier prey.

Yellowstone- Our Last Few Days (07-09-12)

When we first arrived in Yellowstone 3 weeks ago, we sat down and made a list of things we’d like to see and do.  A few days ago we revisited the list, tweaked it, and put together a shorter list of things that we wanted to make sure to do before we leave on July 10th.
We went back to the Old Faithful area to see if we could catch some of the other spectacular geysers as they erupted.  Old Faithful is popular, not because it’s the best or biggest, but because it’s predictable. We decided to dedicate one more day trying to see some more spewing, and we were pretty successful.  In fact, 3 of the geysers we managed to see put Old Faithful to shame!!  Especially Beehive.  Beehive and Grand are two of the tallest active geysers in North America.  We first witnessed Grand’s eruption, at around 10 in the morning:

We were lucky with that one that we didn’t have to wait more than 30 minutes.  The next eruption we wanted to see was Beehive, but it’s not known for it’s predictability. It can be anywhere from 11-18 hours between eruptions. We stood around for a while, then debated whether we should wait, when one of the Geyser Geezers (people who are addicted to watching the geysers spew) told us that no matter how long we had to wait, it would be worth it.  So, wait we did- for almost 2 hours, but the time passed by very quickly because we were chatting with a couple from New Jersey that we met.


Beehive Geyser

 Beehive has a “Tell”.  About 10-20 minutes before it erupts, a smaller nearby geyser, appropriately called Beehive Indicator erupts. Finally, at 12:35, Beehive let loose.  Now that’s a geyser! 
The water erupted with incredible force.  You could hear and see the power behind the eruption- I think partly because we were a lot closer to the action.  In fact, with the wind shifting every few seconds, we got quite wet.

That same day we managed to see Great Fountain geyser erupt as well.  This geyser pretty much exploded into the air.  It’s very difficult to capture all the action, even with video.

We’ve made a last minute push to see as much wildlife as we can, so once again we got up at 5:30 and headed out the door. This time, instead of Lamar Valley, we went to the closer Hayden Valley, to look for wolves and grizzlies.  Because of the rain, the fog was pretty thick and didn’t lift until we had been standing around for an hour or so.  We were with a bunch of people, some who had scopes, and we all chatted, so it was fun. 



Bison swimming across the river

   We ended up seeing a Bald Eagle (no picture- he flew too fast) and several bison who decided to swim across the river.








We all had our scopes and binoculars trained far into the distance, where the local wolf den is.  Eventually, the alpha female came into view, along with two pups.  I have to take the word of the people with scopes that there were pups- all I saw was a blob of fur, they were so far away (in fairness, they did let us look through the scopes, but it didn’t help much).

Later in the morning we went for a (boring) hike and came across some black bear tracks that were old, but still very visible.

On the way home we checked out the river rapids where the fish jump during spawning, but didn’t see any jump.  What we did see was another Bald Eagle.  This time I managed to snap a few shots as he flew over.

We did end up taking the boat out on the lake a total of three times, exploring new areas every time. We found a few thermal areas where the water temperature is considerably warmer than the rest of the lake.  This is overflow from a hot spring, and the water was about 85 degrees in that area.

The wildlife was plentiful- I took this picture of a grizzly from the truck as we drove by.

Bison like to take dirt baths.  This was along one of the trails we hiked.

This black bear was about 200 feet from the road, just minding his own business while we all took his picture.

I mostly took this picture because it shows just how huge bison are.  This guy is taller than the car. Hard to believe people approach them, thinking they are “tame”.  Two weeks ago someone was gored and landed in the hospital because he didn’t move out of the way of a bison. He just assumed that since the animal approached him, that he was used to being around people.

As we were leaving the park we got one more chance to enjoy the wildlife, although since we were towing and they kept crossing the road in front of us, I am not sure the word “enjoy” is appropriate.

The day before we left, we had our most incredible wildlife show, but I am going to put that in another post….more soon…..