Heading to Yellowstone National Park

We had a 3 hour drive out of Seeley Lake but as always the Mazda 6 was as determined to get there as we were, thanks Blair. On the way we stopped in Butte (pronounced Beaut, they didn’t want to be the Butt of all jokes). We took a short town tour in Butte which was interesting. They lay claim to having the richest hill in the World. It is a mile and high and a mile deep, and they have picked and drilled their way into most of it. They are still mining silver and molybdenum while trying to clean up the mess, 50 billion gallons of it (3.8 litres to the gallon!!!) from past mining of copper and other minerals. They won’t have that finished by Fall would be my uneducated guess!

We arrived in Bozeman in the early evening and I think they were expecting us! The main street was cordoned off, there were three bands going strong, 10,000 people and plenty of foodstalls. Perfect. We stayed at a B&B with the owners who ran a scuba diving shop downtown. I did my best not to laugh when explaining that they are a wee way from the sea, one of the main ingredients of that pastime I thought. “No, we have lakes…” wiped the smiled off my face …for a few seconds. But it turns out that practice in lakes with 2m visibility and stuff tied to the lake bottom to make it interesting. They showed us a photo of a human skeleton sitting on a chair at 15 metres deep! We were having a sort of rest day here but decided on a short walk in the canyon country to the south of town. Five hours later and after being completely ‘lost’ we were fabricating a letter to the authorities regarding the accuracy of their maps and track numbers…a total shambles, but all is forgiven, we’ve moved on.

From Bozeman our next accommodation was on the north boundary of Yellowstone National Park, in Gardiner. A great place to launch our animal ‘hunting’ expedition. We made an early start, before daylight (about 5.45am) to get ahead of the masses and catch the animals having one last bite before bedding down for the day. The drive in the Park is most enjoyable, exciting around every corner. We saw a lot of Wapiti, hundreds of bison, almost a pack of wolves and some Bighorn sheep. Scenery in Yellowstone is amazing. We spent a couple of days in the north then went east then south. 

On the way we passed through Cooke City, a real western-feeling little backwater. While we stopped at the saloon it would not have been surprising to see Wyatt Earp or Ben Cartwright walk through. I think I caught a glimpse of Clint Eastwood riding out of town as we arrived!

Back on the road south to Cody was enjoyable driving. Roads are good but doing 80mph is just too much...that’s 140kph! We must have seen well in excess of 1000 motorbikes so far, most of them have passed us and 90% would be Harley Davidsons. Interestingly they are often a guy and a girl, mostly older guys (bit of grey showing) but the guys never wear a helmet while the female passenger always does. I figure that they have worked out that if they came to grief then the lady wouldn’t want to ruin her good looks while the men are hoping it improves theirs. The guys can’t claim it messes their hair as many are balding. They sound and look great and are always friendly. Although the driving has been interesting. We seem to have the left-hand drive, right side of the road pretty well sorted but the 4-way compulsory stops are a touch confusing. We generally wait a bit until everyone seems to have stopped then make a dash across.  I think we must have it nailed as we regularly get a wave, either with two fingers or one! The one fingered wavers are particularly friendly as they will often give us a short toot on the horn as well. Lovely folks in America.

Cody is a city that was established by Buffalo Bill Cody back about 1880. Everything in the city revolves around the man. You have the Buffalo Bill Motels, Bill Cody Motels, Buffalo Bill Cody Motels, the Cody Motels and on and on, be it hotels, streets, saloons or cafes…he will never be forgotten. We visited the Buffalo Bill Centre and it was well worth the couple of hours. He was a ‘scout’ in his early days but later became legendary for taking his Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show around the world from 1883. We never bought the fridge magnet though. 

We stayed on Grizzly Ranch for two nights with some more lovely folks. They are semi-retired make a living off growing and cutting hay to sell. We spent an hour with Kim, an old-time rodeo man who has hung up his spurs. Cody is in Wyoming and is considered to be, by themselves, the cowboy state. They have a rodeo in Cody every night of the week! After visiting the Calgary Stampede we didn’t think another rodeo was going to pass muster.

From Cody and back into east Yellowstone we mounted an assault on Avalanche Peak. This is a mountain over 10,000 feet and we climbed it without oxygen! The highest I had ever previously climbed was Mount Egmont at 7000+ feet, and that was 45 years ago! (Where does the time go?) 

Later we headed into the central part of the Park, an area of geysers, sulphur and thousands of people. It was interesting though and many more colours than Rotorua. We did a couple of short climbs to get a view down on the thermal area and were quite amazed at the sights. Old Faithfull isn’t as active as she used to be (…. then, “who is?”), but she faithfully shot a good head of water 15 metres into the air. The sound of camera shutters was deafening! 

So we had more animal watching, mostly wapiti, bison, mule deer, squirrels, and we did see a black bear on our travels…. he was on his in the distance. No moose to date so hopefully in the Grand Tetons National Park where we will head at dawn tomorrow. 

Out of Glacier National Park, heading South

The Going to the Sun Road was just that as we got away from West Glacier just before sunrise and as we hit Logans Pass to cross the divide the sun peeped over the horizon like a well scripted movie set. The road is narrow in parts and while Diana was a bit nervous of doing the steering she figured she would be safer in that seat than me as I was still looking for antlered critters. Never saw anything to note right through the fantastic drive, apart from soaring Rocky Mountains and sheer faces of rock that soared into the skies…possibly beyond the environment!

Our first meander on the East side of the Park was from Many Glacier up into the mountains to “Iceberg Lake”. I’m sure we hadn’t made it to the Arctic Circle, but we did climb for a long time, and we found a lake with icebergs floating in it. A magnificent lake in a hanging basin, they are all so breath-taking. We were unlucky to miss seeing a moose on this walk as people we passed on the track said keep your eyes peeled, there is a moose grazing just below the track 400 yards along there. But no matter how much peeling we did no mooses were sighted.

From Many Glacier we drove south to East Glacier through magnificent country again. We settled in East Glacier for two nights so that we could spend a day in the Two Medicine area. This was more big country but a few less visitors… still too many, but less than other places. We boated to the head of Two Medicine Lake in a vintage motor boat carrying 50 people. We had wonderful commentary on the way, spotted a couple of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep high up on a mountain and just as we pulled in to the jetty at the head of the lake there was a young cow moose, 20 metres away, walking slowly along the lake edge. I hurriedly got the camera out, bit tricky to set up out the side window of our somewhat cramped boat, but I got in good position and excitedly snapped off three unbelievable live moose photos. The moose climbed into the undergrowth and was gone immediately. I reviewed my unbelievable photos to find that I had three excellent photos of the inside of the lens cap! Darn, hate it when that happens…several notes to self!. Don’t get over-excited being one of them.

We disembarked and after a quick scan of the surrounding area realised that moose can be very elusive. We headed off on our planned 9km out and back hike up to No Name Lake. (There appears to be too many lakes and they have run out of names!) Once again the mountains soar up from the lake edge in a bowl formation with snow still trapped in the shaded areas.

The past couple of days we have been driving, first back to Kallispell then south along Flathead Lake down to Seeley Lake. Diana was again driving on a very scenic route when I noted a sign the said “Animals Crossings, Take Care”. I was still reading the sign when all breaking systems were deployed as a fawn was standing in the middle of the road! It’s 32 degrees and not the right place for wild animals to be. Goodness knows where the hind was but I’m sure the fawn was severely reprimanded!

Tonight we are in Seeley Lake, a nondescript little village, a bit like Kuratau on the shores of Lake Taupo. Tomorrow we will edge closer to Yellowstone National Park and prepare our expedition once in Gardiner.

Crowsnest Pass and on to Great America.

Our journey south from Paradise Valley through Plains country to Crowsnest went uneventfully but gave us a real experience of the prairies. Seriously flat land but presumably not very productive as we saw very few animals or crops. Surprising that these guys aren’t good at cricket but I guess their summers aren’t long enough. Sure is plenty of room for a pitch and an oval. We enjoyed the drive through this part of the country with the long straights at 110km per hour and Blairs Mazda keeping up with the best of the Dodge Rams.

Arriving in Blairmore in Crowsnest Pass we met up with Maureen and Greg again (who we stayed with in Paradise Valley) and they had their grandson Colby with them, Tracey’s middle boy of three. 

Our first mission from Crowsnest was to the “Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump”. This was a sort of abattoir used by the Blackfeet Indians over 6000 years ago. Here they planned to herd buffalo over a vertical drop of some 30 metres but not before they had checked the phase of the moon, gathered enough young chaser recruits to dress in wolf skins and got the blessing from the Medicine Man. All going well the muster took 2-3 days of slowly gathering the herd together then speeding up the chase toward the cliff. There is 10 metre pile of bones at the base of the cliff so they had some success. This took place in the Fall (Autumn) so saving the meat through winter was little concern as air temperatures rarely rose above zero.

Our next visit was to Frank Slide and this is worth a google. (Not to be confused with a giggle – but sometimes I wonder) In 1903 the top fell off Turtle Mountain and hurtled down onto the town of Frank at 4.00am in the morning, temperature was a chilly -20degrees. 90 people were killed under the 80 million tonnes of rock and the scar is still quite evident. We had the pleasure of being adopted grandparents for the day of Colby as Greg and Maureen had another errand to take care of. We had a wonderful time with this little guy and he no doubt wondered where on earth these strange people came from……but he didn’t say! A well-mannered chap for sure. Hopefully we will see him again in New Zealand, perhaps in another 10 years time.

We took a short walk around a mountain lake with Cam and his family, wife Marnie and son Logan. Each evening in Crowsnest we retired to Cam and Marnie’s house for dinner and a sat around their fire pit. It seems standard practice in Alberta to have a fire pit and no matter the weather, a fire can always be lit. Not sure how many forest fires started from them but sure as one thing, they have had plenty of wild fires. They were warm family gatherings as the sun slowly wandered off over the horizon around 10pm.

We finally, sadly, said farewell to Maureen and Greg and couldn’t really thank them enough for the hospitality that they afforded us. So many relatives were visited, dined with, conversed with and said good bye to. We are hopeful that they will visit us again but like us, the years are running out and the steps into the aircraft are getting steeper! However, we have hopefully left a positive impression on their grandsons (of which we think there are 8) and our extended Canadian family that one day they will come knocking on our door to give us an opportunity to repay some of the wonderful hospitality that we received.

After Crowsnest we are heading south across the border into Great America, a land of miles per hour, gallons of fuel and a currency of dollars and cents. But we divide the dollars up into quarters! Interesting place.

Our aim was to visit Glacier National Park in northern Montana. We had two ventures into the park and enjoyed the amazing scenery. A walk into Avalanche Creek was spectacular but then everywhere we look the scenes are those seen on jigsaw puzzles.

Yesterday we took a free shuttlebus to the top of Logan Pass in the Park, walked to Hidden Lake, hidden because the mist was down low and we could see nothing. But….almost as if a miracle had happened  a gap in the cloud gave us a view of, now named Unhidden Lake and a grizzly bear 200metres away. These critters are quite a nasty beast but so long as you are no less than the second slowest runner you should be okay. I stationed myself next to a 6 year old who I think I could outrun if necessary, but that might have been a close a run thing. 

We walked on in the afternoon on Highline track (actually a Trail here, with a Trailhead…but no Foot) which was serious goat country, check out the track! Then we encountered a massive Mountain Goat, a billy which was a great sight.

We have been careful not to mention politics, especially here in Montana, presuming it would be a Trump stronghold. On arrival last night we met a guy in the motel unit next to ours, he was tuning his fiddle at the time. Clearly not the sort of a guy to open with a fake news Trump story but he opened with a tirade of derogatory comment that took us by surprise. Where he lives the farmers all grow wheat and barley. Apparently they grow crops and freight it to Mexico so the Mexicans can put it in their tacos etc. Well, that trade has stopped and they have to grow something else. I asked just how many Mexicans there were and how many tacos did they eat. “Truckloads”! my new friend said, “Trump has stuffed that”.

We were lucky to meet up with Peri Sasnett and her man Kevin, at the pub next to our West Glacier Motel. Peri studied in New Zealand and we met her through a mutual friend, then she and Kevin came and stayed with us for a night last April. Peri and Kevin both work as Park employees here in Glacier NP and Tetons NP. They have been a wealth of information for us about the hikes and everything local.

Tomorrow we intend to drive the Going to the Sun Road, world famous here in Montana, and providing nothing goes amiss the sun will rise and we will be well into it by 6.30am to avoid the queues of traffic. Main hope is that we see a moose, or a bear, or something with antlers.

Our journey took us from the dinosaurs of Drumheller to the town of Red Deer, north of Calgary. We had a night here before a short drive to Sylvan Lake to meet Diana’s ‘cousin’ Kim and her family, husband Lee and boys Nolan and Jaxson. Kim had visited us back in 2003 when she was backpacking in New Zealand and we enjoyed catching up on the intervening years.

From Sylvan Lake we were headed to Paradise Valley via Stettler where we had booked a prairie train ride to Big Valley. This is a one and a half hour ride south, dinner and return. It was a Saturday we boarded along with 300 others. All went well until about an hour into our journey when a gang of outlaws stopped the train boarded and demanded valuables and money. In a tense hold up that lasted a good 30 minutes we had our wallets lightened while gun shots could be heard throughout. No one was injured but we got some good photographs which the local constabulary were keen to have in the hope of tracking these thugs down. From all accounts it happens too regularly! 

After dinner we roamed through the little town of Big Valley and through a couple of museums. One held the largest collection of tools in North America.

Sunday we headed to Paradise Valley and directly to Maureen and Greg, Kim’s mother and so another cousin of Diana’s. I am using the term cousin quite loosely as the relationship is through Diana’s grandmother, Jessie, being a cousin of Maureen’s grandmother, Emma. Both of these ladies emigrated in the late 1800’s and I think Jessie got the better deal weather-wise but no doubt they both lived through some pretty harsh conditions to establish themselves in their new found homelands.

In the prairie country Emma and her husband were able to purchase a “quarter”, that being 160 acres, for $10. The land had all been surveyed into square miles and then divided into quarters for the new settlers. 178 million acres was surveyed in the 1870’s and this was the largest grid survey in the World. Surveyors worked hard without GPS to divide and map the land although the area was basically all flat. A man told me that if he cursed his dog and it ran off he could watch it for 5 days before he lost sight! Once divided up the Canadian authorities wanted to colonise it as quickly as possible with the “genteel” people from United Kingdom. They were concerned that if they didn’t get the inexperienced but peaceful and orderly society with strong values of civic involvement and leisure activity from the UK they were at threat of getting settlers from northern USA. This might result in tumultuous and possibly violent communities. We visited Emma’s house, still standing but unfortunately beginning a stage of rapid deterioration. The house stands on a “quarter” (65 hectares) and after several years it has had a number of owners but is now back in the family having been recently purchased by Carol, Maureen’s sister.

We had a wonderful stay with Maureen and Greg who like us are still very active. They visited New Zealand and Australia last year and saw to it that we were well entertained and able to meet all of the relatives in Paradise Valley. We had dinner with Carol and Lyall, who along with their son have numerous quarters and numerous different income streams on their quarters. Canola is flowering at present so the fields are all a rich yellow which seems to be an uplifting colour, a warm summer colour.

We also visited a herd of farmed bison which once roamed the prairies in their millions. An estimated 25 million once roamed free from Alaska to the US but through hunting and habitat loss were reduced to 1000 in 1889.  As they are now farmed and used for their low-fat meat there is little chance of extinction. The population now numbers in excess of 500,000 being wild and farmed.

I did learn one thing while driving along with Lyall. I am very pleased to learn this because for my entire life, up to the stage I am at now, I have never known. That is, when rainfall is measured in “points”, what is a point? I can remember asking my Dad, before I was a teenager, “…Dad, what is two points?”

“Two points is two points of rainfall”

“Yes, but if it was 10 points what would it be?”

“That would be 5 times more than two points!”

“But 10 points of what?”

“Rainfall”. I about gave up then.

But Lyall has sorted this out for me and unfortunately I can’t get this back to Dad. And I don’t think I am the only one who didn’t know.

So Lyall clearly explained it is 2 tenths of an inch. 2 points is 2 tenths of an inch. How this ever came to be the measurement of precipitation I don’t know. It seems they have metricized an imperial number at no advantage whatsoever. Mike, Tracy’s husband and I had a good laugh about this. I think the New Zealand meteorologists have got this sorted when they measure rainfall in millimetres

Donna Neil Rob Diana Maureen Carol

We visited Donna, another of Maureen’s sisters, for a Bar-B-Que Canadian style and were able to meet her three daughters. It was especially great to spend an afternoon with Janice Matt and Mya. Janice visited New Zealand several years ago and stayed in The Grapevine picking fruit. She travelled NZ meeting many of her relatives there. Now she has a home, a wonderful husband Sheldon and a couple of potential backpackers in 10 years time. As everyone has been invited to NZ I suggest you prepare yourselves for their impending visits. Not sure what preparation is required though. At Donna’s house we met her brother Neil Brassington once again. When Diana and I travelled in the early 80’s we stayed with Neil at his parents, Art and Joyce’s farm. Sadly they have passed away.

Diana Sheldon Matt Mya Janice Rob

It has been a fantastic week, visiting the “Climb Thru Time” museum in the converted grain elevator, visiting “Lloyd” (local town of 28,000, Lloydminster) with Janice and Maureen and Greg. We picked “saskatoons” with Tracy and her three boys and enjoyed sitting on the elevated deck with a beer and putting the world to rights.

We left PV on Thursday 19^th July heading south toward the township of Brooks. We drove through seriously flat prairie lands where they seem to graze 1 bullock to 50 hectares. Either Angus or Hereford seem to be the beast of choice. There is no irrigation, the pasture appears poor and consequently very little stock was seen. We had a thunderstorm to the south of us, probably 500 kms away, so flat it was quite visible.

We head towards Crows Nest Pass now before crossing the border into USA sometime next week.

Dinosaurs and Broncos

We have had a packed itinerary since driving out of Banff National Park and onto the prairie. With a bit of time to spare before checking into our lodgings in Calgary we decided on a short sharp excursion to Drumheller, about 100kms to the north east of Calgary.

Drumheller is one of the foremost sites for palaeontology in the World……looking for (and finding) dinosaurs. We aimed for their World class museum to get an idea of what had been found recently. Unfortunately so did half the state seeing as it was school holidays. Once inside we saw some seriously spectacular bones of critters that are no longer with us. The oldest known dinosaur isn’t as healthy as he once was but then he is 110 million years old. He was found when prospectors were looking for oil and gas not too many years ago. The museum was well set out and people moved through at a good rate, took us about 2 hours. I was surprised to read that of all the animals to have roamed Earth, 99% are now extinct. Cockroaches are hanging in there from centuries ago and so is the Tuatara but he didn’t get a mention.

Back in Calgary we greeted Meghan’s parents Murray and Lynn, who flew in from Regina, Saskatchewan to join us for the Stampede. 

Our first day saw us jostling with zillions of people, Sunday, school holidays and children’s day. Our main event was the Chuck Wagon racing. We paid a bit to have first class seats, undercover, fully glassed in with full time waitresses bringing beer, food and water. The chuck wagons were most entertaining where four teams, that’s 4 horses and a wagon, a driver and two out-riders, compete against 3 other teams in each race. They have a hell of a fiasco to get started with horses and men moving in all directions like a square dance then they head out for a flat to the boards quarter mile race around a track. Mostly they all got through without mishap, got their placing and then do it all over again for 10 days straight. There were about 36 teams in all and some big prize money at stake.

Attractions at the Stampede like many of our A&P shows including the rides and money reducing stalls and food. We weren’t tempted to ride the Big Dipper or the Zip Line, nor did we put any balls down a clown’s throat at the “everybody wins a prize” stall….. even though there were plenty to tempt us I did think they have upped their game since I was an excited 10-year old.

Most of the food couldn’t tempt us either. In fact thinking back on it most was deep fried apart from the BBQ meat section. However we were tempted by the “Deep Fried Coffee”. Seemed interesting, can’t be too bad. Lined up behind 10 other eager suckers. Deep fried coffee consisted of half a shoe box type arrangement with what looked like the remains of a recently castrated ram lamb. These little beauties were brown in colour, coffee colour perhaps, they appeared to have the consistency of a small chewy meringue but they were “deep fried” so now loaded with oil and smothered in chocolate sauce. I shovelled them down to get the experience however my stomach was not impressed and it was a close run thing to see where they were going to come out. I’m sure this food stall hasn’t got the heart surgeons stamp of approval and I’m quite sure that it was a once in a lifetime experience for me. My stomach went into recovery mode and a glass of beer later in the day ensured all systems were back to normal….phew, a lucky break!

Our second day saw crowds drop off a bit, but we were heading steadfastly for the rodeo. Cracker of a day and we are back in our fully enclosed seats ready for action. I did consider the saddle bronc ride but was turned away due to wearing spectacles. Dodged a bullet I think as some of the riders, who looked pretty serious about the whole thing hit the turf hard.

Later in the day I though a go at the bull riding might be my thing but turned away once again as I didn’t have long sleeves on my shirt. Had an impressive hat but no, not with short sleeves. I was fairly determined to represent New Zealand so asked about the sheep ride, thought I would be quids in there. No, they don’t have a sheep ride anymore. They have a 3 person team affair where each team, aged 8-12, decked out in uniforms and crash helmets is given a 20 foot rope tied to an agitated miniature pony. At the get go the pony seems to head out fast as he can while each team is trying to get one of their party onto it’s back. One little guy held the end of the rope and was dragged across the arena for a good 100metres…mouth full of dust and horse shit I’m sure. Of 8 teams only 2 got a rider up. I wasn’t allowed in that event either but it was the best rodeo I have ever been to. Totally professional and big money involved across all sections. Top riders I understand can make $300k per year. I figure that one young cowboy, who told me a few years ago, that it is the most exciting thing you can do with your pants on was WRONG. I wouldn’t do it for one day if they gave me $300k! What a fantastic day with great weather, a great crowd and special friends to attend with, thanks to you all.

Now we are headed back to Drumheller to look for dinosaurs….bones in the Hoodoos but it’s raining and no good for walking in slippery oil-filled soils for 2-3 days so we will head off somewhere, tomorrow. In the meantime a quick walk about town revealed a dinosaur on almost every corner, I had to help one out.