Looking for Moose and the Black Mountain Fire Lookout Tower

Our CO2 monitor went off three times during the night. We have found that these sensors are a common problem in the RV industry, as we had the same false alarms in our motor home. You had to take those alarms seriously, but we hadn't even had our propane on. These faulty alarms almost make the possibility of CO2 poisoning more prevalent because you start to ignore it after so many false alarms. Enough of that rant, but after being awake from so many alarms, we were a little cranky when the clock alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. That's prime time for moose hunting, and we didn't want to disappoint the moose that were waiting for us. We spotted the first one just a mile down the road.

She was literally "on the road." Those long legs would tangle with any vehicles driving too fast through this stretch of the Big Horn Mountains.

We found some moose in basically the same spots as yesterday. We drove 5 miles west of Bear Lodge on Highway 14A, one of the best moose viewing areas.

Aside from the opportunity to find so much wildlife, it was also a beautiful landscape. We have wandered into more of God's wonders!

Besides moose, Mark also spotted a herd of elk grazing higher on the mountain among the white trunks of the aspen.

We counted 138 elk in the open meadows. Who knows how many more were hidden from our view in the forest?!?

The pictures weren't great, but we zoomed in with our binoculars and camera to get a more detailed view. While we thought they were all elk cows and calves, we finally spotted two different bulls with their massive antlers among the herd.

We had already spotted 15 moose  on this morning drive, when we saw that our camping neighbor's vehicle was pulled into another spot near a field of willows. We stopped to talk to them and spotted ten more moose with them.

As we drove further down 14A, we saw something unusual--a moose cow and calf striding quickly through an open grassy area. 

They stopped occasionally to look behind them.

Then we saw the big bull moose that was following them. It's not yet rut season, but this younger male still had his eyes on a potential mate.

Older males have larger racks that will be handy for impressing the females and fighting off other males.

After a fun morning on our usual five-mile drive down Highway 14A, we decided to try a little drive south on Highway 14. We spotted only a few more moose, and decided to turn around when we saw something we'd never seen before in these mountains--thousands of domestic sheep!

It felt like the green meadow was getting fuller and fuller, and then we realized that a steady line of sheep were still coming out of the forest in a single file line.

As far back as we could see, they were scampering out of the woods. We could hear the bleats of the running sheep, the tinkling of the bells attached to some of their necks, and the thundering of thousands of hooves. 

It was an incredible scene to see and hear as the sheep streamed in to fill the expanse of the sage brush meadow. The ranger had said that ranchers leased this land from mid-July through September, and we were assuming they were all cattle ranchers. Now we know that thousands of sheep also graze these mountains each summer.

We spotted some sheep wearing bells and a few of the "black sheep of the family." We thought we would find a sheep dog chasing that long line of sheep out of the forest. But we sat and waited until the last sheep came out of the woods, and nothing was chasing them. We guessed they had spent the night in the warmth and protection of the woods, and their alarm clock had gone off to get to the meadow at 8:00 this morning.

As we drove back to the trailer for breakfast, Denisa tallied up our morning wildlife count:

31 moose

14 deer

138 elk

and 2,000 sheep (+/- 1,000)

It was raining as we fixed breakfast inside the trailer at 9:30. But we were hoping it would clear as we headed out to hike Black Mountain Fire Lookout Trail. The directions to the hike said, "3 miles on gravel road, then continue on road 222 to the trailhead." We soon found that road 222 was terrible, even for a four-wheel-drive pickup. After 0.2 miles driving over big rocks and through water, we parked and walked the last 0.7 mile to the trailhead. 

Once past the trailhead, the actual trail was a short but steep route through the forest.

We found some nice viewpoints out of the forest to see that we were making some good elevation gain for views over the valleys below.

The last half mile was a scramble through the rocks and along rock ledges.

As we got higher, the rocks got bigger and steeper. We had some serious rock scrambling in that last half mile.

When we got tired, we could always find lots of rocks to sit on and take in the beautiful view around us. We have wandered into another of God's wonders!

We finally scrambled all the way to the top of Black Mountain, where the fire lookout was perched.

Built by the CCC, this was the residence of the fire spotters in the 1920s and 1930s. It was all boarded up now, but we could just imagine the young men that fashioned these walls out of the local stone to make a house.

While being a fire spotter was a lonely job, it certainly offered a lovely office view.

We lingered at the top, still watching the clouds gather and wondering if we were going to get wet before we got back to the pickup.

This would be a terrible place to be if it started lightning and raining.

While the fire spotters had a house at the tip of the mountain, they had to run downhill to get to the bathroom. Denisa was pointing at a tiny structure below--the roof of the outhouse.

Sometimes going down a steep rocky trail is harder than going up. So we took our time getting down to that tiny wooden structure. Denisa has a collection of outhouses in beautiful locations, and this will be a handsome addition to her collection.

Bonus! It was a two-holer!

Another bonus: It had a patch of raspberries surrounding it.

While we have been blessed with huckleberries, blueberries, salmonberries, blackberries, and thimbleberries on this trip, these were the first raspberries for us this summer.

Let's talk about the "elephant in the room." In the course of our summer's travels, you might have noticed that Denisa's hair was getting longer and longer. She decided months ago that she wanted to see if she could grow it long enough to wear it in a pony tail. The pictures today prove that it was long enough, even though it's not a great ponytail.

Even though it was cloudy all day, we were still dry when we got back to the pickup. We saw only two other people on this 4.2-mile trail with 1,099 feet in elevation gain. This area of Wyoming was not only full of wildlife, but was largely undiscovered by tourists! After our hike, we headed to Bear Lodge for some wifi time, and our second piece of pie. On the menu today was caramel pecan apple pie. Yes, it was as good as it looked.

After our appetizer, we went back to the trailer to fix dinner. It was raining most of the afternoon, so should we go out for more moose hunting this evening? Of course we should!

The rain kept most of the moose hunkered down in the forest, but we did see these two cows walking out of the woods.

We watched as they approached the wood rail fence next to the highway. With little effort, they jumped up . . .

and over those fences.

While they might do a good job of keeping the cattle off the highway, those fences were no match for the deer and moose. It's up to the drivers to be mindful of wildlife on the road.

The duet made it across the highway, and jumped right over the second fence just as easily.

They were headed to that valley of tender willow plants. If you look carefully, you can see another set of ears on the right side of the picture. These stands of willows are prime grazing areas for moose.

We went back to the same pull-out spot where we turned around this morning after five miles. We found the same three bull moose grazing in this area every morning and evening.

Another favorite moose hunting spot was down a gravel road.

 

Sure enough, we were rewarded with another moose cow sighting.

We were also rewarded with some yellow aspen leaf sightings. It looked like fall would come early to the Bighorn Mountains, as we were still in the month of August.

It stopped raining, and we got out to do some binocular scanning at another favorite pull out. The rain lowered our numbers this evening, but the final count was

18 moose

21 deer

While we watched, another moose cow came out of the willows. Her silhouette against the cloudy sunset was the last picture from another very fun day of hiking and looking for moose in the Bighorns.

Sunrise at Yellowstone and Sunset in the Big Horn Mountains--which had the best wildlife?

It rained most of the night. The locals were glad, as this was the first moisture they have had in months. We were up to 6:00 a.m., and on the road by 6:30. We were just outside the entrance of Baybridge campground in the middle of Yellowstone National Park when the sun was rising and we had our first wildlife sighting of the day. 

A herd of elk were grazing in the grass around our campground. It was fun to see an elk cow checking out our early-morning departure.

But it was even more fun to see a very young elk calf amble across the road in front of us. We watched as the calf knelt down to suckle right beside the road in front of Yellowstone Lake. Yes, this was a magical place!

It was cloudy, but the rain cleared the smoke from the air. We saw the hazy view across this big lake right after sun rise.

While it was fun seeing wildlife right outside our campground, our real destination for the morning was Hayden Valley. Staying inside the national park meant we could be there in two miles. On other visits to this big park, we have driven eighty miles to get to this special place known for its early morning wildlife sightings. We stopped to see a bison ambling along the Yellowstone River.

But the real find of the day was a little further down the road. When we spotted a big group holding cameras and binoculars all pointed in the same direction, we knew we would find something special. They had been watching a grizzly as he swam across the river. Now he was walking through the sage brush.

With that signature bump over the front shoulders, it was definitely a grizzly. He would disappear in the brush, then reappear in the next opening. We could see him with our naked eyes, then it took our binoculars, then he was just a spot. We stayed with the hushed group of spotters until he was just a speck.

We had more bison spottings, then we made a short drive on a spur road to Artist Point. The canyon walls were wet from the rain, and were especially colorful this morning.

Artists come here to try to paint this canyon, but they can't match God's artistry. We could see Yellowstone's Upper Waterfall at the end of the canyon.

We drove as far as Canyon Village before we turned around to meander back towards our campground. It was fun to find bison along the road this early morning.

We spotted a large herd on the ridge line, silhouetted in the morning light. We pulled over and stopped, as it looked like the herd was moving our way.

Sure enough, they started moving down the hill, coming to a rest right beside our parking place.

Some of them were in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the herd. They were running full blast down the hill, with tails high in the air.

Our parking place in a dirt pull-off beside the road was a perfect place to get close pictures of the different generations within the herd.

The big bison were rolling in the wallows right in front of us.

When the herd decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the road, they started blocking traffic to get there. We now were in the middle of a classic Yellowstone traffic jam.

We have heard many stories about stupid tourists getting too close to the wild animals in the national parks. Here is pictorial proof that those tourists were visiting that morning as well. That big bull bison was just a couple feet away from the man that stepped outside of his car to get a better picture.

Our pictures were all taken from inside our pickup because we had a great spot.

Further down the road, we stopped in at Sulphur Caldron. We didn't take the time to cook eggs this morning, but it certainly smelled like rotten eggs from this overlook. It's normally crowded with no room to park. But this early in the morning, we had the overlook to ourselves.

We stopped to see the boiling mud pots, thinking that we had wandered into another of God's more stinky wonders.

Just across the road was the Mud Volcano stop, with its wooden boardwalk loop. While usually crowded, at 8:30 we got a picture of Mark by himself in front of the Dragon's Mouth Spring, belching sulphur steam. That wasn't Mark belching, it was the Dragon's Mouth gurgling and rumbling gray water through its hidden caverns.

The tiniest wildlife sighting of the day was posed on a bush not far from the Dragon's Mouth.

We were back at the campground at 9:00. Mark fixed the sway bar bracket that had slipped during our drive yesterday, and we left by 10:00 in the sprinkling rain. It was a 45-minute drive to get to the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park, where burned trees from previous years' wildfires make up much of the mountainous landscape. The rain had cleared the smoke from the air, and was hopefully helping to put out this year's wild fires. Lightning often starts the fires, so a gentle rain with no lightning was especially helpful. We drove between the tall chocolate brown rock bluffs on our way to Cody, Wyoming.

We drove 185 miles, and almost four hours this day. While we were wearing jackets because of the cold weather this morning, we were sweating in the desert landscape by the time we got to Greybull, Wyoming. It was 83 degrees in the foothills of the Big Horn mountains.

We started our climb into the Big Horn mountains at 3,700 feet in elevation in Greybull at 83 degrees. The pickup did a heroic job of pulling our trailer up the steep mountain roads. Forty-five miles later we were at 8,400 feet in elevation and needed our jackets again.

We first stopped at the Forest Service dump station to empty our tanks and fill up with water for free. Then we stopped at the Forest Service visitor center to get the latest information on the area. While boon docking was very popular in this area, we had reservations at Prune Creek Forest Service campground for the next three nights. We were in site #18 on the end of the campground with two great camping neighbors on either side.

One of those neighbors pointed out that a cow moose was lying in the shadows just ten yards from where we backed the trailer into its site. The wildlife--especially the moose--was why we had returned to this section of the Big Horn Mountains.

Last time we visited here was in 2023, and we were in the motor home. Because of our electric refrigerator, we were forced to stay in a terrible campground with an electrical site near Bear Lodge. This time we were so glad to have our solar power and a little trailer that fits well into this forest service campground!

We did stop at Bear Lodge, to use their free wifi and buy our first piece of pie. Last trip we tried a different kind of pie at the lodge restaurant every day. That was such a good idea that we planned to repeat it. After our first night, we could recommend the French silk chocolate pie!

We went on our first hunt to find moose at 6:00 p.m. We weren't sure if we would find many this year, so we started taking pictures of all that we saw.

Sometimes we spotted cow moose hanging out together . . .

and sometimes a lonely bull moose.

 

One difference this year was the presence of cattle in these grassy areas. When we were here in June 2023, if we saw a black dot in the distance, we knew it was a moose. This time those black dots could be cattle. The forest ranger at the visitor center explained that ranchers lease the land from mid-July through September.

We remembered some of our favorite moose-sighting places from our last trip. When we saw a group of people with big cameras and binoculars at one of those favorite pull-outs, we stopped. The three bull moose near the creek were easier to see if we stood on the back of the pickup.

One advantage to visiting in late August is that we got to see the big antlers on the bulls. They regrow these big racks every year, so when visiting in the spring they would only have antler nubs.

When they were feasting on the tender willow stems, sometimes all we could see were those antlers.

We moved to another favorite spot, and found this big boy by himself. It was at this stop that we met a couple from Florida that drove from Yellowstone today--just like us. But unlike us, they had spotted five different bears in their early morning drive in that national park.

He showed us his bear pictures on his cell phone. Without a zoom camera, he had to get close to get good pictures. We want to note that this crazy guy with graying hair in the photo below is NOT Mark.

We respect the wild animals' space and would rather take pictures from a distance--especially when they turn and look at the intruder like this.

We watched the bull saunter through the creek bottom, and then stop to get a drink in an open spot.

Again, our Florida friend got too close for our comfort. This was a big wild animal that could charge very quickly.

He was mirrored in the water below. What a great wildlife sighting!

He did keep an eye on us, but we guess he was saving his energy to fight off competing bull moose during the upcoming rut season--rather than pesky tourists.

He finally got his fill of water and sauntered off, but we certainly enjoyed the time we got to spend with this bull moose this evening. Because the wildlife were so numerous in this area, we had learned to keep a tally sheet from each sighting. We stayed out until it got too dark to see any more animals.

This evening's count:

21 moose

23 deer

4 sandhill cranes 

We had a great time at both our early morning Yellowstone National Park wildlife sightings, and our sunset in the Big Horn mountains. We've been doubly blessed today!