Yellowstone's Lamar Valley

My recent weekend in Cooke City allowed me a bit of time to explore the Lamar Valley, famous for its wolves and other charismatic megafauna. I headed out at sunrise one morning to see what there was to see. No wolves, but I did see the wolf watchers.

Every morning they gather to, you guessed it, watch the wolves. Using antennas and radio telemetry to locate the collared canids, a core group of wolf enthusiasts spend their mornings (and maybe their afternoons and evenings, I don't actually know how long they stick around...) checking out the pack. I hung around for about an hour, but the wolves never showed themselves.

Cooke City, Montana: of beetles, trees, and skiing.

Headed over to Cooke City, Montana a few days ago on assignment for Backcountry magazine to ski with Jesse Logan, a backcountry-skiing entomologist who is studying mountain pine beetles and their devastating impact on whitebark pine trees. WBPs are beautiful, often ancient trees that grow in the high mountains of the Northern Rockies, Sierras, and Cascades. Their nuts are a critical food source for grizzly bears and other mountain wildlife, while the trees themselves are vital for backcountry skiers. Not only does their wide spacing allow for excellent tree skiing, but they provide "safe zones" on steep mountainsides, anchor potential avalanche slopes, and prolong the spring snowpack with their thermal cover (which is also good for down-valley trout and other water-loving creatures, like people). And, according to Jesse, they'll be functionally eliminated from most of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem within five to ten years.