We awoke to a rosy band of light on the eastern horizon, quickly ate a bagel, and headed down the road towards Chugwater Lek in hopes of seeing where males were settled there.



We did see a few birds flush from the road, as well as this beautiful Rough-legged Hawk, but no birds once we turned down the draw where the lek was. The grouse are definitely taking this winter seriously! We’ve never seen the leks so consistently empty even in early March. It makes us wonder whether the whole season will be pushed back significantly, or whether the birds will rapidly switch gears and we’ll have leks full of birds as soon as the weather improves.

We continued well past the lek to check out another lek site. We didn’t end up finding the lek, but did see an interesting interaction between an extremely alert group of mule deer and a coyote. There were cows grazing in the area as well, but they completely ignored the coyote. It was pretty far away so this is the best photo I could get (coyote is the dark spot up and to the left of the deer).



We also found another neat rock formation. This was similar to the Monument rocks, but without the cap of hard rock to shelter the softer rock beneath, so the face becomes eroded in an amazing variety of shapes.

It is a testament to the winter Wyoming has faced so far- we’ve had 3 days in a row of above-freezing temperatures (during the day at least), and we still have plenty of snow on the ground. Unfortunately we are slated for more winter weather this weekend and early next week, so we may not get rid of the old snow before we get a new layer.

Thankfully the grouse seem to be as put off by the snow as we are. We’ve seen a few of them from the road near our camp, even displaying at times, but they don’t seem to be spending much time on the leks. We checked out Chugwater the other day, and walked down from camp to Monument Lek today. Monument was, if anything, even more clear of grouse sign than was Chugwater. No footprints, poop, or cecal casts. We did see that there is a new culvert where the road was badly eroded last year (see the April 10, 2010 entry).

Today was one of those bright, warm, almost cloudless winter days. We weren’t deterred by the snow and mud, so decided to trek down past Monument Lek to the amazing rock formations. I’ve taken oodles of pictures of these amazing formations every year, and couldn’t resist taking even more, especially with my new camera and polarizing filter.









The hike back to camp was pretty tiring with all the mud and snow, but well worth it for the view today.

Our office trailer was supposed to arrive Monday, but high winds prevented delivery Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday wasn’t looking too good either according to the dispatcher. Thus it was a joyous surprise to see the familiar green-trimmed trailer chugging up the HAC when we were heading down to Riverton to run a couple of errands. The installation is going on as we speak, unfortunately all the snow melt has made a mess and it is taking a long time to get the office trailer stable and level.

With no work space we have not been able to get at any of the gear. It has just been the crew hanging out in the trailer for the most part. Erin and Dan got in first, and we managed a quick trip to Sinks Canyon yesterday. There was a LOT of snow, more than I’ve seen there. The main river channel was mostly covered. We didn’t see any Dippers anywhere, so I wonder if they didn’t have enough clear real estate along the stream.



The snow was (mostly) packed down enough for us to hike up our usual trail up the canyon. Spectacular as always!



Also one moose resting below the road in the University of Missouri geology station.



Today we ventured out to Chugwater Lek mid morning after the male sage-grouse would have stopped displaying for the day.



There was still a good foot of snow on the lek surface, and only a small amount of grouse sign. It is still quite early and with the amount of snow it wasn’t too surprising that the lek wasn’t more active.



We also began orienting the crew to the ins and outs of living in the trailer. Here Gail is demonstrating emptying the grey water for Erin, Mary, and Dan.



The port-a-potty also arrive today, so we’re pretty much all set! Tomorrow we’ll set up the office trailer and start bringing the 4-wheelers up from Riverton. Progress!

Big tractors are SO cool. We met Jim this morning at his house and followed his jumbo-sized John Deere up the HAC to our campsite. His plow made short work of the snow there, and we avoided getting stuck while maneuvering the trailer in like we did last year.

We were pretty enthralled by the big green machine, and I couldn’t help taking a few pictures of it.





Jim even let us climb in the cab!



With the camp cleared of most of the snow, it was pretty easy for us to get the living trailer and atv trailer up the hill. Our field station was taking shape. Of course, nothing is easy out here. We parked the trailer just a few feet too far from our big propane tank, so we ended up having to use a small cylinder of propane that night. Also, the plumbing wasn’t dealing well with the bitter cold (no running water). It ended up being a LONG day getting as far as we got with the camp set up. Still, it was satisfying to see our first sunset from camp.

Our goal for today, after re-acquainting ourselves with the breakfast menu at the Oxbow, was to try to get the travel trailer up the hill to camp. This is often one of the hardest tasks, since we need to tow it up on a curvy, often snowy or muddy road, and more than once we’ve drifted into a ditch or otherwise gotten into trouble.

The Hudson-Atlantic City Road (or HAC) had close to a foot of snow on it, although there were some nice tracks to follow and we didn’t have any problems driving up there. Heading up the hill we scared up a large golden eagle who kept landing ahead of us then taking off again as we got closer. I ended up getting one of my better golden eagle pics when he settled a little longer on the fence near the road.



Unfortunately when we arrived at the pull-off where we set up our camp, it was pretty clear we would not be able to maneuver a trailer given the loose gravel and snow drifts. We put on our shiny new chains but the truck was still hard to control, and would be a lot worse with a large trailer behind it.



We headed back down the hill and stopped at the first house- a rancher we’d waved hello to before but hadn’t really talked to. Jim turned out to be a really nice funny guy, and we were glad that our need to find someone with a snow plow finally led us to introduce our selves and get to know one of our neighbors out here!

After arranging to meet Jim tomorrow morning, we headed to Riverton to pick up the trailers at Four Seasons. Gail noticed the really bizarre pattern of ice crystals on the wheel hubs. Kind of creepy!



The trailers are in Hudson now, and we’re back in the Pronghorn.