This is what I do when it gets dreary at home in the winter: go through my trip photos from the last year, and plan my trips for next year. It’s a damp, chilly sub-freezing evening that went dark at 4 p.m., and I’m sneezing. In other words, time to spend time bundled up with cups of ginger tea looking back and forward to adventures.
On a September road trip to Montana, I took a day to go to Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge on the advice of a coworker. She is as much a student of nature and wildlife as I am. She has a niece in West Yellowstone who drove her to Red Rock Lakes NWR about a month earlier.
It was an excuse to speed away from the madding crowd. I needed the break from Yellowstone National Park, which I love and support but grieve over as it becomes overrun. The drive to Lakeview was a trek: 50 miles of gravel roads winding from Henry’s Lake over Red Rock Pass by Mt. Jefferson before dropping into the Centennial valley. The drive was first an adventure in elk avoidance, followed by swerving to avoid barreling trucks loaded with logs from a fire prevention project in the refuge.
Elk crossing the road by Henry’s Lake
Elk that ran across the road on the mountain, running i nto the woods
Logging truck coming down the more benign South Valley Road
I unwound on the lovely and wonderfully lonely drive. The road was lit up by groves of aspens that glow different hues of gold depending on how the light falls. I wanted to stop everywhere to take pictures of fall colors we never see at home, but, well- logging trucks. Enough said.
In Lakeview, I wandered around the refuge headquarters, which were closed since the rangers were in the field. I read signs and chatted a bit with a maintenance person. We lamented house prices in my area, where his kids live. Way too high, but property was also too expensive around Lakeview, he said. A recreational lot was for sale for $87,000. That much, and only 3 acres! He was shocked. I was, too, because you need a snowmobile to get there in winter. And spring brings snowmelt and swampy roads. So you’re using that lot from May to September-ish.
I walked the Sparrow Ponds Trail, despite a recent griz warning. The refuge worker told me the bruins lurk in the willows if they’re around. This one wasn’t, nor was much else except for birds. I wanted to see a moose, but got there too late in the day, he said.
The waterfowl were having nothing to do with me. I tried being sneaky, but a great paddling of wings greeted me as they fled across the lake. I sat huddled on a dirt mound by the shore in the cold wind for as long as I could stand it.
Two trumpeter swans, at a very great distance
Then I moseyed on toward Lower Red Rock Lake. I traveled past the road to the lake out of curiosity, and came upon a little homestead cemetery. I gingerly opened the chain and walked in. The sign is defiant, protective of the crumbling headstones and resentful of the refuge, a last stand to respect the people who clung to a tough, hardscrabble way of life.
The last person was buried before I was born. No one really lived that long except Mr. Shambow, the last to be laid to rest here. Maude, perhaps his daughter, breathed air for only nine days. If there was a Mrs. Shambow, she’s not buried here; perhaps the tragedy of losing an infant drove her away from this place.
It’s not clear whose headstone this is, but the farewell is resigned, a drop of the hands to the sides. The words convey exhaustion, defeat by a rough land and rough weather.
After visiting the windswept cemetery with its oblivious gophers heaving the hallowed earth into mounds, I drove to Lower Red Rocks Lake campground. The gates and the signage speak to the neighbors and their manners.
There was no one at the campground, perhaps because it was so exposed. The upper campground looked full as I passed. I tip my hat to the National Wildlife Refuge System for installing a handicapped-accessible site in the middle of pretty much nowhere.
This area, from my perusal of the Web, is a good one to photograph pronghorn antelopes. The fastest of North American land mammals, they evolved anatomy and physiology to escape long-extinct cheetahs. The bounding gate, large eyes with 320-degree view, and rump flagging must still be serving them well still- as long as the predator isn’t carrying a firearm with bullets that travel faster than they can run.
I wandered around the campground, took swan pictures rendered fuzzy by heat waves, and then escaped the wind in my car. I pulled out to the entry road to eat lunch from the shelter of my vehicle, taking photos of the pronghorns. I thought I might hike Odell Creek trail on the way back, but it was closed for the logging operation, so I wandered back slowly to West Yellowstone, stopping while cowboys moved cattle to winter grounds.
I wish I had camped, really, instead of coming for the day. I could have wandered among the aspens, waited until the rangers returned to the office to browse through exhibits and skins and feathers, watched for moose in the cold early morning. But I needed to get back to my motel whether I liked it or not because my gear was there, along with my food. Next time I will linger. No more town life. Not next time.
Silver Snag Studio 