Field Work! - Red Lodge & Base Camp

I don't have much time - I actually got both rugrats to nap at the same time - so I'm only going to do a little today.  I don't have many pictures for these subjects anyway.

Our field camp is the Yellowstone-Bighorn Research Association (YBRA) about a mile south of Red Lodge, MT literally on the side of a mountain.  It is a camp started in the early 20th century for geological and paleontological research in the area, principally by Princeton University scientists.  It is still used for those purposes primarily.  It's a fantastic site, with primitive cabins for most guests, but faculty  cabins have electricity with a mini-fridge and bathrooms with showers.  The dining lodge is very nice and the food is fantastic.  3 good home cooked meals/day - what more could you want?

Here's Dave (my boss) leaning on the back of my truck.  The cabin he and I shared is the one on the hill on the right. 

This is the view from our cabin's porch.  The dining lodge is in the foreground.  This is kind of a perfect view to sum up all of Montana.  You're looking almost directly North.  This is the exact point where the mountains start - literally from this point and toward the left, the rest of the state is very mountainous.  From this view and to the right, it's all rolling plains.  Down in the valley slightly toward the right is the little town of Red Lodge, which you can see better at night.  It's about 1,300 ft lower in elevation.  Yes, the road getting up to camp is very steep - about 1,300' in a mile is very steep.  It's dirt, too, so I'm just glad it was dry every time I drove it. 

As I said, it's on the side of a mountain, and at ~6800 ft elevation, you get out of breath pretty easily.  The 1st day you get there and have to lug your gear up the hill to you cabin isn't easy. 

Here's the view from the back porch of the dining lodge.

 Here's the inside of my cabin right before I left.  My bed is on the right.

 Pretty nice - everything you could need.

Red Lodge is a wonderful little.  It was originally a mining town for the local coal mines (which I'll talk more about later), but successfully made the conversion to a tourist town after the mines closed.  There's a ski slope on the mountain above town and there are events here all the time - the Sunday night I arrived was the end of a biker rally, the next weekend was a Mountain Man Rendezvous and the State Fiddling Competition.  The thing that really save the town, though, was the building of the Beartooth Highway from Billings, through Red Lodge, over some unbelievable mountains (which I'll also get to later) and into the northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park.  Yellowstone is only about 60 miles away on this road, but since it's slow driving, it will take you 2 hours to get there.  But when you see the views, you'll want to take longer. 

This is one of the few pictures I took in town (usually my town trips were hurried).  This is the town's taxi.  It's free, but tips accepted. 

I usually could not care less about cars, but lots of people out west love to refurbish old cars or build hot rods.  Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night they bring them into town.  If you're sitting at a restaurant on the sidewalk, it's like a parade going by.  There were some pretty cool ones, but I think this one was my favorite.