Category: Trip report
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Endings
For this final post on our recent winter trip to Yellowstone, I share a poem that Melissa wrote on a previous trip and read to our group while snowshoeing one day. It seems like an appropriate ending for this incredible journey. Yellowstone (a poem by Melissa Dowland) I want so much To connect ever… Read more…
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Hayden Valley Highlight
At this season Nature makes the most of every throb of life that can withstand her severity. How heartily she endorses this fox! ~John Burroughs, “The Snow-Walkers”, 1866 Hayden Valley is one of my favorite spots in winter, with its gently rolling hills covered in deep, smooth snow, interrupted only by an isolated tree here… Read more…
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Sharing The Place We Love
Through the weeks of deep snow we walked above the ground on fallen sky… ~Wendell Berry After a few days of hanging out with our friends in Gardiner and exploring the park on our own, we drove to Bozeman to pick up a group of friends from NC that would be joining us on our… Read more…
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The Place We Love
Sometimes you look at an empty valley like this, and suddenly the air is filled with snow. That is the way the whole world happened – there was nothing, and then… ~William Stafford We have returned from our special place – Yellowstone. Not all of us is back. We seem to always leave a little… Read more…
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Winter Bliss
When you leave a beautiful place, you carry it with you wherever you go. ~Alexandra Stoddard I certainly carry certain places with me. And moments in those places have a way of adhering to my memory, reappearing when my mind wanders to sights and sounds of their wildness, their beauty, their mystery. And I now… Read more…
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Another Count, Another Great Day at Pungo
Conservation is a cause that has no end. There is no point at which we say, “Our work is finished…” ~Rachel Carson Saturday was our chance to participate in the 119th annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. We did it, as we have for many years, at the Pettigrew Christmas Count centered on Lake Phelps in… Read more…
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They’re Baaaaack
The homing instinct in birds and animals is one of their most remarkable traits: their strong local attachments and their skill in finding their way back…It seems at times as if they possessed some extra sense—the home sense—which operates unerringly. ~John Burroughs, 1905 Last weekend we managed to escape for a couple of days and… Read more…
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Hiking the High Country
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. ~Harold B Melchart Seems like just a little over a week ago that I was struggling to climb a mountain… Read more…
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Shining Rock
Backpacking: An extended form of hiking in which people carry double the amount of gear they need for half the distance they planned to go in twice the time it should take. ~Author unknown Melissa loves to backpack. That is an understatement. And I love to be in the places that backpacking takes us. It… Read more…
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Hot Holiday
It’s summer and time for wandering… ~Kellie Elmore After I retired (you remember back when I was retired) I loved the fact that I could go to some of my favorite places on a week day when fewer people would be out and about in the wild places I love. I certainly didn’t want to… Read more…
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Roads End Naturalist 