National Bison Range

The smoke of this Summer's fires is really starting to clear out in earnest, but it's had us socked in for about a month and-a-half. That, along with this, and 100+ temps means we haven't done any camping. But before the smoke really was a problem, my family was here and we took a trip to Glacier National Park. On the way we drove through the National Bison Range, near Dixon.

Buffalo, bison, whatever. This cow seemed not to mind the cars driving past her and her calf. Mmmmm...Veal-alo.

This is some early-season smoke obscuring the Mission Mountains. Later on in August we had a couple stage 2 air quality warnings in Missoula. Almost made me wax nostalgic for SoCal (actually, Santa Barbara didn't have especially bad air).

The buffalo (bison, for you prescriptivists) are kept on the range by the Feds for some reason or other. Every year they sell some for the slaughter. How close will they get to your car?

Pretty close.

At the top we took a walk and looked around. This is my Dad again.

Not all the animals on the range are big.

Melissa really likes antelope. (Wait'll we see a dead one--we'll have to buy a chip for the camera.) I think they seem kind of dim-witted, but they definitely look kind of cool, with those weirdo horns. They can run really fast.

Mission Creek runs along the Northern border of the range. Last year we saw a bunch of elk (wapiti) along here. Some of the bulls were bugling. Man, that is an eerie sound.

They don't let you have these. In fact, there's a camera on them 24/7.

Maybe next time I'll post some Glacier pictures, if we don't do something first.