New Bridge

Since we have lived here, we have had to cross the creek using a ford in order to get to the house. A bridge has been on the wish list for a long time now and after a rough winter it was moved to the top.

This bridge will be similar to the one we built over Beaver Creek in 2007, except that it will be bigger.

I drew plans for the bridge in Sketchup. 

Step 1: make curved templates for the top and bottom plates of the forms. The inside radius of the arch is 13'-1" and the outside is 13'-9". The arch will be 8 inches thick.

Last time I made very large forms that proved to be difficult to handle. This time I made them in 4' long sections. There are 8 inside and 8 outside forms.

Here is the bridge location before starting work:

Step 2

Thursday I rented a mini excavator and dug out both banks.

Two dump truck loads of rip rap (large rocks) were delivered and placed in the holes.

After placing the rip rap:

Step 3

Reinforced concrete spread footing will be poured on the rip rap. Here is the first form going into place:

The creek is rising fast now that warmer weather has started melting the mountain snow. Hopefully I can get the concrete foundations poured before it gets too high.

Ghost Ranch

A few miles north of Yellowstone is one of the first dude ranches. It operated from 1912-1939 and was eventually acquired by the US Forest Service. They don't advertise it and not that many people know about it or visit it. This past summer Terry and made the 1.5 mile hike in to check it out. 

There were several original buildings still in good shape

Several had restoration work completed.

In the main lodge there were some old photos of how it looked back in the 20s and 30s.

There was no one around and the lodge doors were locked except for one side door. I had called the Forest Service office before going and they said it was ok for us to go inside and look around.

One wing of the lodge had a billiard room with the old pool table still there.

Elk Hunting

I got out and hunted quite a few days with no luck. Elk were very scarce this year.

Terry and I went out Friday after Thanksgiving, riding the horses in the dark for about an hour to get to a good glassing area by daylight. We glassed a while then rode down the valley for about a mile, tied up and hiked up a ridge. It was a nice trip but we didn't see any elk so headed in about mid day.

We went back home for lunch then I took the horses up to another area in the afternoon. My plan was to go in about 5 miles there, set up a small camp and hunt for the last two days of the season. I had a lucky break on my way in and came upon two bulls on the trail about 75 yards away. It was kind of brushy so they didn't run off right away. I had to get off, tie up one horse (there was nothing handy to tie the other to), get out my rifle and shoot. I managed to do all that before they ran off. He was not a big one but it was nice to get another year's worth of meat. I only had about 45 minutes of daylight left so I tagged the elk, set up camp about a half mile away by a spring, left the horses there and returned to butcher the elk in the dark. The next morning I packed everything up and headed down the mountain. Halfway down I came upon a big mountain lion near the trail. He ran off. That was the first one I had ever seen while hunting.

Hopefully next year Terry will get her chance at an elk.