Paddle boarding at last!

A co-worker invited me to join her and 2 friends for an outing to Slide Lake. It was about an hour away and as always, the ever changing terrain, rugged wilderness and mountains were gorgeous. Note the Tetons in the distance, shrouded in ominous clouds...

We rode past the tiny town of Kelly and into the Bridger Teton National Forest and Gros Ventre wilderness area. As we neared the lake, there were towering red rock and "regular" rock cliffs. Every now and then, we would round a bend and see a lone tree that had turned golden.... harbingers of Fall!

We continued along the narrow winding roads and then, there was the lake. Slide Lake is about 2 miles long and 1/2 mile wide. It is a natural lake, created on June 23, 1925 when the Gros Ventre landslide dammed the Gros Ventre River. The lake was once much larger, however part of the rock dam failed on May 18, 1927, causing deadly flooding downstream and nearly washing away the little town of Kelly.

The lake is very different from one side to the other, with tall cliffs in one direction and a lush green ranch and hills of pine forest in the other.

The lake has a rocky shore and cool, clean turquoise water. We inflated the paddle board, set up our chairs and spent a few hours just relaxing...

 

Slide Lake has campsites and a small boat ramp. It is also home to natural and stocked fish including lake and Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout and mountain whitefish.

My friend accidentally brought the lightweight kayak paddle (thin, curved blades on both ends) instead of the paddle board paddle (handle on one end, firm, flat blade on the other) so we mostly just took turns sitting, kneeling and standing on the board. It was a little windy and choppy, but still fun to be on the water. After years pf paddling in the Intracoastal Waterway and Atlantic Ocean in NC and FL, and even once on the TN River... now I can finally say I paddled on a fresh water lake in Wyoming! ;)

 

  

Yes, I do "work" on a ranch, but I seem to be finding plenty of time to enjoy the surrounding area and meet fun, new people!

Yurts and an all day horseback ride in Kelly WY

I recently went on an all day ride with ranch guests. The six horses were trailered behind the truck to nearby Kelly, WY (20 miles away), and our ride started there.

 
Kelly, Wyoming was initially a modest but thriving rural town located on the banks of the Gros Ventre River. Around 1925 the town had many amenities: mercantile, Riverside Hotel, blacksmith, flour mill (1917-1921, burned), dance hall and sawmill (removed 1918). In 1904 the first school opened on the Warren Henry homestead. By 1909, families from the surrounding area began constructing small cabins in Kelly to stay in while their children attended grade school. In 1914 the town was approved for a post office, which remains open today. Prior to this, Kelly was known locally simply as “Bridge.” The name illustrates the importance of the timber bridge that spanned the Gros Ventre River, one of the few early bridges built in the valley. There were few options in the valley for safe river crossings, and the Kelly Bridge was one of four until the mid-1920s. Kelly was devastated by a flood in 1927 and again by a fire in 1971, but still exists today.

 

Kelly is also known for its yurt colony (above). There are 12 round canvas dwellings, a little unsightly, but grandfathered in and allowed to be there by old laws. Residents share a common bath house and get water from a well. The structures are heated by wood-burning stoves and have sky lights in the middle of the domed roof. Anyway, that's Kelly, WY. Back to our ride... it was cool (70), sunny, with low humidity. A perfect fleece day.

We unloaded the horses, and I rode Serenity again. I was joined by a nice couple from MD and one from NC, along with a ranch wrangler. Off we went, rounding hills, passing through sage brush and pine forests and eventually climbing steep ridges. The all day rides are strictly walking so as not to tire the horses... and riders. 

 

There's a little pond in the photo above and a lone, tiny cabin... good luck finding it. At the top of one ridge, I had one of the most incredible views of the valley and Tetons that I've seen yet. Usually, I'm IN the Tetons looking down on the valley and towards the Gros Ventres (locally pronounced "grow vont") range. We stopped for photos. 

 
For perspective, we began our ride on the back side of the hill in the center
of the photo above.

           It was hazy and smelled like smoke because of wildfires nearby in Idaho
           and Yellowstone...yikes!

This picture reminds me of those old Westerns like Big Valley and Ponderosa. After a couple of hours, we stopped for lunch on top of a ridge, tying the horses up and eating sack lunches packed for us in saddle bags by the ranch (sandwiches, chips, apples, carrots, cookies, water, lemonade). It turns out the NC couple knew a friend of mine from home so we took a photo together to send to him. Small world.

 

 

                                                  With our ranch wrangler

Sweetest horse ever, head buried in my chest, eyes closed, letting me scratch her face and head ;) After making sure we had all our trash, we remounted and made our way back down the ridge line through a beautiful narrow trail in an Aspen forest. It was a little shorter on the return, and the horses seemed a bit tired, more hesitant and prone to tripping on steep or rocky portions of the trail. That always scares me a little. Just last night, a wrangler told me that when your horse goes down, the trick is to stay on and not try to hop off. Good to know. I broke my shoulder in college doing just that. Swung my leg over the saddle and when the horse got back up, my right foot was caught in the stirrup and I got jerked down on the ground.. hard.

 

As we neared the valley floor, we crossed through tall grass that looked like wheat. Completely new terrain, once again. It was beautiful. Another great day in Wyoming!

 

A Chamber of Commerce Mixer and a Yellowstone presentation by author David Quammen

About 8 miles from the ranch on the way into Jackson is R Park, short for Rendezvous Park. It is a former gravel pit that has been transformed into a beautiful 40 acre park and public space and is still a work in progress. Owned and stewarded by the non-profit Rendezvous Lands Conservancy, it offers paths for walking and biking, ponds, benches, gardens, artwork, bridges and more. They hosted the monthly Chamber of Commerce Mixer providing networking, beer, dinner and music!

 

                                 Last night's Chamber event as it kicked off...

The information tent... membership and donations encouraged ;)

 

Chef Paulie O'Connor created a menu featuring cowboy caviar tortilla cups with assorted beans, spiced peppers, Spanish herbs, and avocado; a salad of baby iceberg lettuce with house-cured bacon, assorted peppers, caramelized onion, and blue cheese dressing; and pulled pork sandwiches with coleslaw on 460 Bread buns with mac & cheese.

                                  Craft beers and IPAs were provided by a brewery in Colorado...

The band was Whiskey Mornin, comprised of Jackson locals Taylor Upton & Leif Routman who founded the band in 2012. Their style is influenced Motown, modern pop, classic rock, hip-hop, and more. I must say, Wyoming Chamber mixers are a lot more casual and fun than east coast events. Not a suit to be seen!

All in all, a fun event. I wish I could have stayed longer to meet some new people, but there was a 6PM Yellowstone presentation in Jackson at the Center for the Arts. Off I went, determined to get a seat in the 500 seat venue... I didn't want to get turned away like I did at the sold out "Bear 399" lecture in June!

I got a front row seat in the balcony, and David Quammen was introduced as an author of over a dozen books, Boseman MT resident and Yellowstone ecosystem expert with over 20 years of experience. In May 2016, National Geographic decided to devote an entire issue to Yellowstone and for the first time in its history, one author wrote the entire issue. That man was David. He worked with a team of iconic photographers from the magazine, and the result was spectacular. I read the issue last week, and many of its images were featured during the presentation but with in-depth commentary and additional photos.

                                    

I was determined to attend this presentation because on Sept. 5th/6th, I'm finally taking my park pass on my days off and driving north to see and experience Yellowstone for the first time. I plan to drive up the east side of the park on day 1, spend the night at a little motel in Gardiner, Montana and drive back down the west side of the park on day 2. About 300 miles round trip... I can't wait!

Apparently, if you drive every road in Yellowstone and stop for a quick peek at all the "major attractions" you'd still only be seeing 1% of the park! It covers millions of acres and has countless back country trails, land, waterfalls and campsites rarely visited by the average tourist. It even has its own grand canyon which I plan to visit. Over 4 million "tourons" have visited this year so far, breaking records for park capacity, traffic (bear photo) jams and doing stupid things like taking selfies with dangerous bison and bears. A hiker without bear spray was killed and literally "eaten on" by a grizzly with cubs, not far from a park hotel last August (2015). Oh well. This slide drew big laughs:

This year, the park is also newly filled with "don't squat to pee" signs because hords of Asian tourists are not used to sitting and break the toilet seats. Probably not the best year to visit Yellowstone during the National Parks 100th Anniversary crowds, but I'm here and kids are back in school, so why not? I may never pass this way again...

Anyway, back to the lecture.... David described the evolution of the national parks and how in the late 1800s until 1960s, thousands of "bad wildlife" animals including bison, mountain lions, wolves, coyotes and even white pelicans were killed in order to attract tourists to see the "good wildlife"... friendly, hand-fed bears that actually ate from car windows and lived on park garbage. Rare white pelicans were killed and their nests and eggs destroyed to protect the dwindling trout population that they fed on, another big draw for fishing tourists and even Presidents.

                                           1970s photo by Jonathan Blair

Eventually some Yellowstone species neared extinction, and attitudes thankfully changed. Park dumps and garbage were finally secured and then bear populations plummeted but they eventually learned to feed themselves and avoid people somewhat. Grizzlies and wolves were put on endangered species lists and protected, with wolves being reintroduced in the 1995. Both species are thriving these days, and Montana and Wyoming now have to deal with angry cattle ranchers who want to protect their investments and livelihoods from the carnivorous wildlife.

It's a delicate balance and hotly contested issue. Bottom dwelling Lake Trout were inadvertently introduced into Yellowstone in the 1960s, nearly making the native, top-dwelling Cutthroat Trout extinct and thereby affecting Bald Eagle and bear diets and habitats. Sadly, now the Lake Trout are being slaughtered by the thousands (not even utilized for food since the Park isn't equipped to meet health department quality and safety standards) but will likely never be completely eliminated from these western lakes where they don't "belong."  This is a photo by Charlie Hamilton James... a grizzly protecting its bison kill from competing wildlife.Amazing!

Both grizzlies and wolves are spreading out way past the boundaries of Yellowstone, migrating to places they've never been seen before and having dangerous encounters with humans. Bison migrations into Montana lead to herds on highways. Elk migrations lead huge herds down to the Elk Refuge in Jackson each November where they have wintered for centuries. Highways and ranch fences have created challenges for migrating animals, but newly installed, wide, grassy migration overpasses are helping prevent road kill. David told us that grizzlies are central to the Yellowstone ecosystem and have over 250 things they eat in the wild. They mainly exist on meat (elk, deer, hikers... ha-ha), trout, white bark pine nuts and army cutworm moths. Each of these have their own predators and challenges to deal with that could eventually eradicate them and adversely affect grizzly populations again.

Long story short, Yellowstone is a very fragile and ever-changing ecosystem that must be monitored and protected if future generations are to enjoy it. There is now talk of eliminating private cars and using buses like they do in Zion, and/or limiting the number of park passes sold. I'm all for it. Personally, I think a lottery system like they use for Masters Tournament tickets would be ideal. What a great presentation. David's books were delayed due to a printing error, so I wasn't able to buy one. Instead, I received an autographed book plate which I'll likely affix to my Yellowstone National Geographic issue ;)

Since I'm talking about wildlife, I thought I'd include these pics from this week on the ranch... a family of deer (one fawn hidden behind tree) having breakfast on the lodge lawn:

 

 

                    Another mama deer and fawn near the crew cabins one evening

And an elk cow (female, no antlers... pregnant?) grazing as I returned to the ranch at dusk. Their other-worldly bugling and fall rut/mating season have begun. I even heard some male elk one night fighting and their antlers "clicking" in the distance. I LOVE my "back yard"!

Earlier in the week, the back of my cabin at sunrise...

The bridge to Pete's Pond...

                                             Sunrise on the Snake River...