A walk on the park... bench

Maybe when you go to the park, you don't go for a walk on the bench.  Steve usually naps there.  This time, however, the "park" is the name of the pasture up the road from the ranch, and the "benches"   are a series of  steep climbs up to level plateaus, probably river basin plains at different times geologically.  On Sunday, Betsy and I decided it was time to head up the "park benches", to get a view back down at the ranch from higher up.  Deep snow has been an impediment, and predators have been a caution.  Sunday, enough snow had melted ( though we did hit some deep drifts, and "posthole"  in some sections) to make the attempt.  Matt had suggested mid-day was the best time to avoid predators, and we had our fresh, unexpired bear spray with us.  So up we went, through the barbed wire fences ( carefully), and ultimately up three benches.
Loki was loving the open terrain and exercise:

At bench two, we were able to recognize two sets of wolf prints in the snow, coming down the bench and converging.  They had been out in that section the night before.  At this point, I was reminded of when Emily was little, and we took the kids to see the movie ET.  At the loud and scary part, Em said "I think I need to go take my nap now!"  When Steve saw the prints, he said "I think I need to go take my nap now!"  Betsy of course said, let's go up one more bench and just see what we can see from there.  So up we went.
We had a great view of the Paradise Valley and Yellowstone River, looking north up out of the Tom Miner Basin:

And of the Sam Anderson ranch where we are staying:

A little lichen art we saw along the way:

Loki found some fresh bones, and became even more enthusiastic about our walk:

And we decided as we worked our way back down the three benches toward the ranch to follow where the wolf tracks had been headed the night before.  Sure enough, right down to the barbed wire enclosing the pasture above the house where all 70 calves are, and right through the fence and diagonally down into the calving pasture and to the shelter shed in that pasture. No calves lost yet, and Matt said with only one or two wolves, the mother cows are pretty assertive and protective and have a fair chance of keeping one or two wolves away from the calves.  In this case, just the one set of wolf prints had carried on into the pasture.

We had a great trip to Freezeout Lake with the Doolittles- 60,000 or more snow geese and just a truly amazing experience.  Next post will include the geese story, but we did get back to Paradise Valley yesterday in time to drop the Doolittles off at their place, get back to the Tom Miner and feed goats, put chickens in for the night, feed and walk 4 ranch dogs, and bolt back up to Livingston where we met Betsy's cousin, Tom and wife Liz at the Chop House.  Tom had won a big teaching award (adjunct math professor) at MSU that day, including cash prize, so he insisted on treating.  It was wonderful catching up with their busy lives, as we hadn't had a chance to see them yet.  They are currently taking every free minute bushwhacking through snow and woods seeking shed elk antlers- where else, but in the Elkhorn Mountain range!