May 5th. Prairie dog PUPPIES..!! ( Oh yes …and a hike to Boland Ridge.)

Who can resist the promise of puppies..!!

( All of the pictures are clickable if you wish a clearer view. Embedded clickable links for more information will be underlined)

It was marked as the most challenging hike in the park…so we immediately put it on the agenda for the next day. It was a bit of a drive out to the other side of the park for this back country hike but a perfect day for it. Lots of bison but not too close.

Its more of the extremely open high plains landscape. It really is quite breathtaking…and I don’t think the pictures do it justice at all..

There were bison around , but a bit more distant …..there was some talk of walking back closer to them……but I managed to avoid that scenario…!!!!

You can see the herd through the trees in this next picture. Remember….objects in the photos are closer than they appear…!!!

It was such a perfect day, and such a beautiful landscape that we kind of regretted not bringing sandwiches and stopping for lunch out there…

You can see forever………

The trail was vey well marked with the same big heavy posts that were on the Centennial trail the day before. Most of them had big clumps of wool on them as the bison are really getting into dropping their winter wool. A couple of little pieces might have accidentally fallen into my pocket.( I have a vision of a little needle felted bison!)

There are many signs warning “Don’t pet the fluffy cows…!!” ( Not a chance I’m getting that close..!!)

The trail went up over the ridge to another high plain and then down in to the next valley. There was not another soul around……it was lovely…

We were starting to see the greening of spring…and the appearance of some blossoming wildflowers…

Just to give an idea of the scale of the landscape……if you zoom in on either of the next two pictures….can you find me Find WaldMho…!!)

As we walked back down to the truck, wee could see a lone young bison walk up beside the road…right up to the truck ( please dont stop….please dont stop…!!). He , fortunately, carried right on past the truck and was off in the distance by the time we got back down. ( Phfewff…!!)

Once we were back down we could see a huge prairie dog town…so when we were done we drove up the road a bit and sat in the truck. We sat long enough that all the babies came out and started to flirt and play.

I’m making no apologies for the number of pictures of prairie puppies…they were adorable…!!!

We also managed to catch a decent bird picture.

Overloaded with cuteness we continued along the outer edge of the park and up along the edge of Custer State Park. We had to stop for these handsome fellows grazing by the roadside.

More spectacular views…and then….marching down the road came a group of bulls……striding along with intent……you can see they are really starting to moult that winter wool…!!!

What a day…….!!!

Extra pix