WATCHING FOR ROCKS Travels of a Sharp-Eyed Geologist: One Last Summer Glance

Friday, August 12, 2011

One Last Summer Glance

Time certainly does have a tendency to fly, doesn’t it? When I first arrived in the park last May I signed up for “Shaping the Northern Yellowstone Landscape” with the Yellowstone Association Institute. At the time, attending the seminar seemed a distant prospect, two and a half months into the future – there was so much to see, so much to do. But now it’s been more than a week since I finished the seminar and departed Lamar Valley to get back to Grant Village. It seems strange that we are plowing head first into the middle of August already. I have been told that autumn comes early to the Central Plateau of Yellowstone. In fact, I think it might be here – sunrise temperatures have been near freezing this week, and there is frost on the pumpkin.

I hope to get back to Lamar Valley in September to do some hiking for at least one day or an overnight and witness early autumn’s paint splashed over the mountains and river valleys. But for the time being I offer a last summer glance at one of the most exquisite areas of Yellowstone National Park. Click on any photo to enlarge.

Lamar Valley from the Buffalo Ranch

Bunkhouse houses classrooms and kitchen - and porch

Male pronghorn with females

Gray wolf of Lamar Canyon pack

Pronghorn herd observing the wolf

Aren't pronghorn the fastest North American land mammal? These females have nothing to worry about from this gray wolf. From a hillside we watched for about twenty minutes as they did their dance and then went their separate ways.

The reintroduction of the gray wolf into Yellowstone commenced in 1995. One place they were held before being released was the Rose Creek wolf pens, in the hills above Lamar Buffalo Ranch. I hiked up there on my last afternoon in the valley.