 |
|
|
Episode 5 |
|
|
From Wyoming to Colorado, via Montana, Idaho and Utah
|
|
 Mountains
... give us beauty in jolts. We find ourselves overcome with what the
Chinese call "rustic joy."--"Shambala Sun", March 2006 A recent issue of Shambala Sun magazine features the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming as a vantage point for asking, What Are the Mountains Worth? It then beautifully describes this range that we so enjoyed in southern Wyoming, before our trek north to the Tetons and Yellowstone: Shadowed and white-spiked peaks [bring] into view an unbroken 120-mile-long mountain wall that sweeps down on either side to green plateaus, river valleys, and high, sage-glutted desert... The Wind River Mountains push southeast like a thick thumb from the wilderness matrix that holds Yellowstone Park, the Tetons, and the Gros Ventres. They are an appendage of the Rocky Mountain cordillera that stretches from the Brooks Range in Alaska to the Sangre de Cristos in northern New Mexico. They carry a piece of the Continental Divide like a snake on their broad shoulders and create their own weather. At twelve, thirteen, and fourteen thousand feet, clouds curdle, pool up, spill down, and loft sideways; ribbons of stunted trees waver beneath granite walls stained by the leaking meltwater of blue tarns.
With profound memories of the Wind River Range still in our hearts, we had moved on through the Tetons to Yellowstone National Park. While the park itself is in northwestern Wyoming, we actually spent our nights in the nearby town of West Yellowstone, Montana, which, as the name implies, is situated at the west entrance to the park. Our plan from there was to spend a few nights camping farther north in Montana before beginning a casual loop toward Idaho, west of Wyoming and the Wind River Range, thereby beginning our first turn back toward the south by an alternate route. But a brief stop in the mountains just above Sheridan, Montana, with record high temperatures and hordes of monstrous blood-sucking flies, convinced us to make our visit there brief. Accordingly, the entire photographic journal of our visit to Montana, shown at right (where does the tree end and the boulder begin?), is also brief!
|
|
|
|
|
|
The next two days found us interspersing casual afternoon travels with
some serious birding each morning, first at the Bear Lake National
Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Idaho (two photos at left, below)
and then at the more rugged Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge
on the Green River in southwestern Wyoming (two photos at right, below).
|
|
 |
|
|
Accordingly, here are our biggest BIRD ALERT lists of the trip.
|
|
|
Bear Lake:
American Avocets American Coots (Linda says Tim is closely related!) American Kestrels American White Pelicans Blackbirds, Brewer's, Red-winged and Yellow-headed Bobolink (male in breeding plumage) California Gulls Cinnamon Teals, Mallards and Ruddy Ducks Double-crested Cormorants Egrets, Cattle and Snowy Great Blue Heron Killdeer Kingbirds, both Western and Eastern (simultaneously!) Large Canada Geese Northern Harriers (exhilarating!) Robins (of course) Sandhill Cranes (pair) Song Sparrows Swallows, Cliff and Northern Rough-winged Trumpeter Swans (we reported two that we saw, with their bright yellow band numbers -- 28R and 30R -- to the wildlife registry that tracks them) White-Faced Ibis (abundant and beautiful)
|
Seedskadee:
American Kestrels American White Pelicans Brewer's Sparrow Golden Eagle (with nest) Great Blue Herons Horned Lark Killdeer Kingbird, Eastern Large Canada Geese Loggerhead Shrike Mourning Dove Nighthawks (x3, in broad daylight) Sage Thrashers Red-tailed Hawk Swainson's Hawk Swallows, Northern Rough-winged and Violet-Green Trumpeter Swans
|
 |
|
| It is a short drive from Idaho through the northeastern corner of Utah and back into southwestern Wyoming. After spending the night in Green River, Wyoming, and visiting Seedskadee that next morning, we then continued southward through the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area, which includes well over 200,000 acres of land and water, running some 91 miles in length and divided about equally between southern Wyoming and Utah. We drove down the eastern side in order to see (as one websie desribes it) "the magnificent chimneys and pinnacles of Firehole Canyon reflecting in the blue reservoir" (see photos below); a trip all the way around the water would include some 375 miles of coastline! | |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
From the dry heat of Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge in the morning, through the unforgettable desert oasis of Flaming Gorge in Wyoming and Utah in the afternoon, we headed eagerly back to the highest mountains of all in cooler Colorado late that evening.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
