Driving School and Good Eats

 After a long winter in Death Valley National Park, California we have arrived at our summer gig, Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming.  What a contrast.  Being at almost 200 feet below sea level and temps above the century mark to over 4,000 feet above sea level and night time temps just barely above freezing.  All in a matter of days.  It's the first week of May and once again we are the 'newbies' and on a steep learning curve to get up to speed on everything Devils Tower and Northeast Wyoming.

Most of our training is on-the-job.  We are shadowing our Interpretive Ranger Supervisor for a week and most of that time is in the Visitor Center.  Head-count coming through the door is ranging from two to three hundred per day.  As we hit peak visitor season, July, we'll be counting 1,100+ during our four hour information desk time.  Plus, we'll be "swearing in" about 10 Junior Rangers an hour.  The other half of our day is spent outside, mostly on one of the trails, doing visitor contact or in the office answering phones, processing snail mail and printing/folding information brochures to stock the information desk.

The park staff here at Devils Tower is really small, only one full-time Interpretive Ranger.  Seasonal Rangers and Volunteers help take up some of the slack in the summer.  With this small of a staff the Natural History Association, which operates the gift shop, is heavily involved in arranging programs such as Native American Hoop Dancers, Birds of Prey, Old West Story Tellers and so on.  During a recent Birds of Prey Demonstration I was doing roaming duties and was able to catch most of the demonstration.  The local bird rescue and rehab group brought in some really nice specimens.

Kestrel

Pygmy Owl

Falcon

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Red Tail Hawk

It took until July but it finally warmed up and little flowers have popped up everywhere.

Our resident prairie dog town has also become very active.  The pups have got some size on them now and they are being more bold about being away from the edge of the burrow.

Turkey vulchers are a constant.  They spend all day catching thermals around the tower, barely flapping once an hour, waiting for the breeze to deliver the scent of something only they would be interested in.  But only when the sun shines.  Otherwise they have a couple of hangouts, one near the tower and one in prairie dog town.  The picture below is on the edge of prairie dog town.

Snakes are common here.  One venomous, the prairie rattler, but the rest are harmless.  Visitors have been encountering a large number of bull snakes, big ones.  They have been bringing in pictures they took of them crossing the trail and not one has been under five feet in length.  Personally I have seen only a few little baby bull snakes but I did get a good shot of a nice milk snake.

Being a national monument this place is not as big as one might think.  It is only 1,300 acres and 65 of those acres are covered by the tower.  Not a lot of room for the big animals.  The monument is also totally surrounded by private ranch land.  Really big ranches, some getting into the 10's of thousands of acres.  The large animals on the monument are mostly just white tail and mule deer.  I've seen both but only the white tails don't seem to be bothered by human presence.

No telephoto necessary.  This one just kept on 
grazing as I walked by on a heavily traveled trail.

I mentioned turkey vulchers earlier but we also have turkey turkeys.  The indigenous species is a Merriam Turkey and they are plentiful.  And noisy.  They've been our 5:00am alarm clock for several days.

These gobblers have been our alarm clock on 
several days.  This little pasture is just outside our door.

We've got some jenny's that are bold enough to 
walk right up into the campsite.

This jenny walked up on our neighbor and her cat.
Cat is in bottom left corner, hiding behind the chair.

An off-property animal that is numerous and that we have really been enjoying is the pronghorn.

Our time in Death Valley was almost totally void of animals.  We are really enjoying being around all this wildlife.  But there is more to Devils Tower and its wildlife.  It has another kind of wildlife, they are called climbers.

Two of our search and rescue crew doing a training climb.

Two guys from Sweden.  I watched them make 
several climbs over a three day period.

Our search and rescue climbers training for getting 
around a very difficult overhang.

Don't know who this is but she seemed 
to be in a predicament to me.  But about 
a half-hour later she made it to the top
of the column she was climbing.

As I write we are preparing for a very busy week ahead.  Sturgis is having its 85th annual bike rally and we are having to adjust our work schedules and duties for the next six days.  It will be an all-hands-on-deck situation and long days for everybody.  We're expecting 10,000 bikes or more in the next few days.  No cars will be allowed to up to the base of the tower, the parking lot will be the exclusive province of motorcycles.  Cars will have to park here, there and everywhere 2 miles down by the entrance station and use shuttle buses (contracted with private companies for the week) to get up and down to the tower.

Early birds.  Bikers that are coming through 
a week in advance of the Sturgis Bike Rally

I hope I get time to take a few pics during bike week.  I'll post if I do.