Our living room, still in need of some furniture.

The view from the front window.

The Kitchen

Gus isn’t so sure about the dirty paws blockade.

Looking out our kitchen window. Im the spring we will have a lot of Bison in our backyard as Horse Butte is a prime calving ground for them. We are interested to see how Gus and Bucket feel about that.

A look from our back door. All of the land behind our house is national forest, so we only have to walk out the back door to take the dogs for a walk.

Brennan’s Office

The view from Brennan’s Office.

Another look at the Living Room.

Two of the houses on the street we are on belong to my winter co-workers, so we already know the neighbors!

Well, that’s our new place. We are really excited about it, a big improvement. We even have multiple rooms! We’ll try and put up some photos from the summer months sometime soon! Until next time…

Brennan got to leave town come the beginning of April and saw a bit of warm weather out in the mitt, but here I sat waiting and waiting. It’s now early May and the snow has significantly melted but there is still quite a bit of snow on the ground in most places. I’d reached a point of disbelief that winter was ever going to end but I’m going to take a cue from the local bears here who are coming out of their long sleep and trust them that spring is finally here.

This shot goes back a couple of months to a snowmobile trip that we took into the park with some friends. Luckily, there isn’t that much snow on the ground anymore!

A lot of bison have died this season, here is one we came across while skiing along the Madison in the park.

Elk in the Winter.

A look at Mammoth under lots of snow

Mammoth Terraces

Bucket’s photo shoot

Here’s Gus posing on a sunny afternoon. Unfortunately our family, human and dog, seem to have serious knee issues. Gus has also torn his ACL and has to have surgery!

The first day Yellowstone reopened for the summer season, we took a walk around Norris. It’s great to see these places change throughout the seasons. In the winter the colors in the geyser basins tend to be a little more muted as there is less sunlight for the sun-loving organisms living here to photosynthesize.

Snow carved out by a thermal feature.

With all the winter kills in the park, you stand a chance of seeing other wildlife enjoying the buffet. We watched these two coyotes for a while.

This is where we have spent a good deal of our time recently. Snowshoes are a necessity here!

In case you missed pictures of us holding fish, I’ve thrown a few in for you. You wouldn’t know it from the picture, but this is supposedly “spring”!

A really nice Brown.

Brennan with another nice Brown.

Here’s Gus getting into the playoff spirit. Go Wings!

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Walking in Porcelain Basin.

On an afternoon drive in the park, we were lucky enough to come across two grizzly bears, this guy here was really close! Truly amazing to see.

Well, hope that makes up for the lack of posts for a while. We are off tomorrow to get Gus all fixed up in Billings, the hard part will be keeping him calm for six weeks… Wish us luck!

Well, its mid February and we are learning that winter is quite long here. Here I am posing in my two new favorite winter items, my Red Wings hat and my Sorel boots rated to 60 below, a great investment out here.

Here I am looking a little marshmallow-like as I get ready to guide a trip into Yellowstone.

A view from Riverside Trail in Yellowstone.

Here’s Brennan enjoying the view.

We took a little detour along the Madison.

The bison don’t really seem to mind all the snow, here they are relaxing in the warm afternoon sun.

Another view.

I pose for the camera against a beautiful backdrop.

Brennan’s taken up a new hobby to fend off cabin fever. He’s been making instruments. Here he is with a newly made cigar box guitar.

This one is made with a piece of oak 1×2, a cigar box, some cheap tuners and some random nuts and bolts from the hardware store.

Gus wonders if Brennan might not be more at home in the Smokies, playing dueling banjos…

Here’s another instrument. A scrap piece of wood, a candy tin, and some random hardware. The tuner way down at the other end is made from an eye-bolt and a wing nut. Primitive, but it sure makes some cool sounds.

Well, winter is definitely long here, but amazingly beautiful. I’ve never seen so much snow before! It does lead to a bit of cabin fever though. We certainly appreciate beautiful sunny days like we had here as frequently there’s not much you can do when the snow is coming down and blowing in every direction, except of course to build rustic, finicky instruments…

I think we might be about half way through, at least we hope so…

So, we got somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen inches of snow last night. What does sixteen inches of snow look like? I don’t know, it was added to the roughly 48 inches of snow already on the ground. Here’s what 60 inches of snow (give or take here, I’m no meteorologist) looks like compared to the much easier to shovel zero inches of snow we had early this fall.

Oh, I fixed the trouble that any of you have had trying to make comments. At least I think I have. So go ahead, comment, we dare you.

The bison don’t seem phased so far by the snow and cold. In fact, I’ve learned that it takes the temps reaching -32 *F before a bison might wish it had a thicker sweater.

This is a view of the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone. It measures 109 feet tall, much shorter than the Lower Falls, but amazing just the same.

Here’s another look.

Here is part of the group that I was helping with.

Here’s a look at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. This viewpoint is called Artist Point.

Here is another view of the Lower Falls. While we visited these places many times during the summer, it really is incredible seeing it this time of year.

This shot is looking out over Porcelain Basin which is in the Norris Geyser Basin. When walking around these geyser basins this time of year, it really gives you a new perspective on how close the Earth’s magma is to the surface in this place, sometimes measuring as close as a few miles beneath the surface. Huge expanses of this geyser basin are hardly dusted with snow while other areas are covered with feet, the surface of the earth being so warm in places that the snow can hardly stick.

The steam and blowing winds throughout the basin coat the trees with thick crusty layers of snow, pretty surreal looking.

This is a spring, abundant with thermophiles, or heat loving bacteria, creating the brilliant colors you see here.

Just another look over Norris.

As always, you can view larger versions of these photos on our flickr account.

While it got cold at times living in Michigan, we certainly have gotten to know new levels of cold.

Here’s Brennan trudging through the snow in search of the perfect tree. Snowshoes are pretty much a necessity out there.

It’s taken Gus a little bit to get used to this much snow and cold, when we first set out this day he tried to go back to the car!

Here he comes…

Bucket doesn’t seem to mind winter in Montana, in fact it seems to suit him quite well.

Super Gus!

Here we are posing by our tree, it took a while but we finally found the right one.

It’s a little hard to tell in this picture, but there is a giant hill behind me that I just carried our tree up. Things to remember next time: Don’t pick the tree at the bottom of the hill.

Here it is decorated.

Here’s another look.

In honor of the holiday season, West Yellowstone holds a Parade of Lights. Anyone can participate, all sorts came out.

A couple more shots.

Brennan has been working hard learning how to make a bamboo fly rod. I think it involves a lot of sanding and time, but I’m not really sure.

Well, we have both been keeping quite busy, Brennan has been working, building his bamboo rod, and getting some skiing in too. I have been busy training with the National Park Service on how to be a good guide in Yellowstone. I have really loved it, I was able to attend lectures by the leader of the Wolf Project, experts on Bison and Elk, and overall, expanded my understanding of Yellowstone National Park. That’s it for now, off to make some cookies… Happy Holidays!

As always, you can view larger versions of these photos on our flickr account. It takes too long to link each picture which has discouraged us from putting up posts, so just follow the link above or at the top of the page.

Cheers,
Rachel

Here she is wondering why I’m trying to blind her with an odd shaped blinking box.

This is Brent and Tammy’s little boy Henrik.

Here’s the whole Schweser household out for breakfast at the Seward the morning we left to head on to Kalamazoo.

Thanksgiving day on the lake. Which lake? The Lake. Michigan.

Camp Friedenswald. I’ve been going here for years… as long as I can remember, actually. This is the Lakeview Lodge.

Here’s an interior shot of the lodge. Lots of little ones this year. It was a ton of fun.

We got home to a lot of snow in our driveway.

This little guy is quite a trooper. Brought us, the dogs, and all our crap half way across the country twice in two weeks.

Oh, me and my bad moustach didn’t see you there. Would you care to shovel?

So, we’re back now. Settling into the cold and the snow and shoveling. Getting our skis and snowshoes ready. It hasn’t been too terribly cold since we’ve been back, but it certainly isn’t warm. Time to go get a tree permit and cut down a little X-Mas tree… Hopefully you’ll see those shots up in a few days.

Here’s a shot of our first (and only) rodeo. Our buddy James rode a bull for the first time ever (well he lasted something like four seconds). There were probably fifty people there. It was an utterly western experience.

We went back to MI for our Mom’s (Pam’s) wedding. We had a great time hanging out with family. Meeting new family, and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

This is the Friends Goodwill, South Haven’s own Tallship. It looks like an June of ‘44 cover.

Here’s beautiful shot of Rachel, all perty and lit up by a sunset over Lake Michigan.

Here’s Rachel with a really nice Rainbow. She caught this one swinging soft hackles in the park. After setting the hook, she got all tangled up in the line, and had to hand-over-hand the fish in. We figured her years of handlining on the Detroit River really paid off on this one.

The bison came back out of their summer ground during the last few weeks the park was open. Here they are around Fountain Flats.

A Hawk.

This is Brennan’s new toy. Inherited from a long chain of hand-me-downs, it’s a 1978 Jeep Wagoneer with a big 401 8-Cylinder engine that will drink gas by barrelfull once it runs well.

This is a coyote. He’s looking for something.

Aspens overlook Hebgen Lake. While the leaves were still on the trees, whole swatches of mountainside were lit up bright yellow. Nothing like the leaves in MI, but beautiful in their own way.

We spent a lot of time in the park searching for big trout coming out of the lake. This is the landscape in the area we fished the most.

Bison and elk. Notice the big bull elk in the foreground. His harem of ladies are out frame to the left. This guy wrangled probably 15-20 cows.

The snow is starting out here (although not in ernest I hear). The temps are rarely leaving the thirties. Wood is being split all over town, and the park is closed for a month, leaving town pretty well shut down, and beautifully devoid of tourists. We’ll be back in MI on the 19th, and we’ll be there for two weeks. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone, and to having a few final beers at the Kraftbrau.

See Ya soon,

Rachel & Brennan

Ok, so it’s been a while, so sue us. We’ve been busy. Well, busy may not be the right word, but at least active.

A few weekends ago we hiked into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone for some good views and cutthroat fishing.

As you can see from the shots above, that’s one deep canyon. Here’s a shot from the way down. The smiles were just a bit harder to find on the haul back up.

Here’s the Yellowstone River from down near the bottom of the Canyon.

Here’s some shots of me fishing down in the canyon.

Here’s Rachel probably about to catch a fish. There were plenty of cutthroat, and they weren’t shy about eating grasshopper patterns.

This is about average size for the cutties we caught all day long down there.

That looks like a footprint… I wonder what could have made that?

A few days later Ryan & Katherine (Catherine?) stopped by on their way back to MI from Seattle. We did a whirlwind tour of the park, and stopped off at the canyon again for views and snapshots.

We found some bison in Hayden valley. We also saw some bears, but they were too far away to get a good picture.

One of the incredible number of beautiful views in Yellowstone.

Rachel and I took a drive to the northern portion of the park to go on another brook trout excursion. We happened upon these elk while we were following the creek.

Here’s one of the brookies we caught out there. They ate the hell out of ‘hoppers. You could see them charge out from under to banks to attack your fly. For a short hike, this was some fantastic fishing/.

Rachel caught this nice guy on her first cast. There were brookies pretty much everywhere you’d expect them to be, and they all seemed to be on guard for unlucky hoppers falling into their creek.

It’s been about three and a half months since we’ve been out here. It’s beginning to be the turn around part of the season as well. Less tourists, the fishing isn’t as good, the nights keep getting colder, and we could have snow in a few weeks. It’s hard to imagine snow while there’s still smoke all over from the various fires around the state. Tonight we’re off to the local rodeo, where our buddy James is going to live out a lifelong dream of riding a bull. James is a big guy, but bulls are bigger. Tomorrow we’re hiking into an extra-super-secret lake where the trout are supposed to be as big as your car. We’ll try and get some pictures and update pretty quickly. No promises though.