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[{"type":"text","text":"The choreography is perfect....."}]

You still here 9 2 24

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>You Still Here? Monday, September 2, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The choreography is perfect.....

You Still Here? Monday, September 2, 2024

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

A rancher near Choteau, Montana, caught video of six grizzlies strolling across his calving lot behind his barn late Monday, and said there were as many as seven bears on his property that night.

The next morning, rancher Neal Collins said agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed as many as 10 grizzlies out of patches of brush across the road from his place.

Collins said no people or livestock were attacked by the bears on his place, and FWP used non-lethal “cracker” shotgun shells to scare off the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A ‘Herd’ Of Grizzlies"}]

Sparky Wallace, a friend of Collins who also lives near Choteau, somewhat humorously described the group of grizzlies as a “herd.”

A group of bears is actually called a "sleuth." Or sometimes, an older term, a “sloth” is used to describe a gathering of bears. 

He told Cowboy State Daily he and some of his neighbors have had encounters with multiple bears, as the number of grizzlies out on the prairie has steadily increased.  

Chad White, a bear management specialist with Montana FWP, said the bears on Collins’ property were probably a “couple of family groups that have been hanging out in the area.”

Meaning, they were likely two related adult females such as “a mother and daughter” and their cubs, White said.

The Choteau area has been busy with bear activity this spring and summer. The bears wander from the Rocky Mountain Front onto the prairie along the Teton River, which flows past Choteau. 

The bears might be feeding on green vegetation and other natural food sources, then taking shelter in brush patches.

“It may be that he (Collins) has the natural shelter for day bedding and they were traveling around the area,” White said. 

White said the FWP bear manager responding to Collins’ call told him as many as 10 grizzlies fled once the hazing stared.

FWP personnel fired cracker shells into the brush where the bears were holed up. Cracker shells fire a small explosive charge with a delayed fuse, designed to explode in the air and ward off predators such as bears and wolves.

“The six or seven bears in the family groups ran off in one direction, and two or three more ran off in another direction,” he said.

It’s not known where the other two or three bears might have come from, White added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Alarm Barks"}]

Collins said he was first alerted to the bears’ presence Monday when one of his dogs started frantically barking at about 9:30 p.m.

“We’ve got this one dog that’s supposed to be a cow dog, but she’s really not,” he said. “She was just barking, barking, barking. She barks on occasion, but not like that.” 

He said he stepped outside to investigate and saw a “flash of a bear.”

So, he immediately went back into his house, shooing the dog inside with him.

A camera he has mounted on the backside of his barn caught video and photos of the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘You Get Immune To It’"}]

Collins’ ranch is about 35 miles out on the prairie from the Rocky Mountain front.

Grizzlies are usually associated with mountain habitat. However, they were originally a Great Plains species, and were driven into the mountains as the West was settled.

Grizzlies have been growing in number and expanding their range in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in recent decades. In Montana, they’ve been pushing ever-farther onto the prairies.

Collins said his father was in his 70s before he ever saw a grizzly anywhere near Choteau. But the bears have become a common sight of late.

When asked if having the bears around worried him, Collins said, “I suppose, but you get immune to it.”

Even so, he’s not happy about the growing number of prairie grizzlies.

“There here, even though I don’t want them here,” he said.

In Wyoming, grizzlies attacking cattle is frequently listed as the leading cause of human-bear conflict.

Collins said he hasn’t lost any livestock to bears yet.

"Even so, they sure don’t help them (the cattle) even if they don’t kill them,” he said. "They move through the cattle herd and stir them up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bird Hunting Gets Wild"}]

North-central Montana is a bird hunter’s paradise. And in decades past, grizzlies would have been the furthest things from bird hunters’ minds.

That’s not the case any longer. In 2023, 

 between bird and whitetail deer hunters in separate incidents.

Those occurred in the vicinity of the Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area. It’s between Choteau and Fairfield, Montana, about 40 miles west of Great Falls.

Collins said that several years ago, a bird hunter had to shoot and kill a charging grizzly across the road from his place.

“He ended up with a scratch on his arm, because the last shot was right at the end of the gun barrel,” he said.

Wallace, a horse trainer and saddle maker, said he’s run into multiple grizzlies while bird hunting.

“I hunt ducks a lot. And even on the little prairie potholes out here, you’ve got to walk in there loaded and ready for bears,” he said.

Herd of grizzlies 2 6 30 26

<title>Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Montana rancher Neal Collins said a camera on his barn captured a "herd" of seven grizzlies on his property Monday night. The next morning, agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed 10 grizzlies out of brush across the road from his place.

Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Some Democrats nationally are calling for a “schism,” 

 growing socialist movement in the party.

Wyoming Democrats told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that there’s no similar call within the Cowboy State’s blue party.

They gave different reasons as to why - ranging from their party's low numbers, to Wyoming's unique culture, to the need for pragmatism in the state and the West. 

“No (we’re not divorcing). There’s like three of us,” said former Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank, who served under Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal and is a moderate Democrat himself.

“It’s hard to fight when there’s only three of you. It’s such a non-factor,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"But First, The Divorce …"}]

Former President Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville last 

week lamented the intense media attention

 on the New York Democratic primary election where, as The Associated Press put it, “New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s slate of fiery progressives swept establishment-backed Democrats.”  

Carville in a video interview said, “The idea — the idea that we must neglect … all the huge, phenomenal success we’ve had and declare that the party is now under the control of a Democratic Socialist of New York City is insane.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The Mamdani wing of the party is too extreme for Carville, he indicated."}]

“Not only are they not Democrats, they wish Democrats poorly,” said Carville. “Let’s negotiate the terms of a schism here.”

He said he’s “enthusiastic” about questioning the policies of Israeli leadership, but isn’t comfortable being in a party that denies the Israeli state’s right to exist.

Conservative USA Today columnist Nicole Russell 

 at how readily Democratic congressional leaders are welcoming the far-left candidates who still have a general election ahead of them.  

[{"type":"text","text":"What Kinda Tent Y'all In? "}]

The Wyoming Democratic Party is a big collaborative tent, the party’s communications Mandy Weaver said in a Tuesday phone interview.

New York is “far removed from the things that happen in our state, and as Wyoming Democrats, we’ve always been very different from a lot of the other states,” said Weaver. “Because we are so small

[{"type":"text","text":"Disagreements surface, said Weaver, and “we hammer them out.”"}]

She couldn’t imagine anyone calling for a divorce of the Wyoming Democratic Party, she added. She pointed to the 

, which she said comprises “Wyoming values” and nothing extreme.

Weaver called Wyoming’s Democratic elected officials “very solution oriented.”

State Rep. Ken Chestek, D-Laramie, echoed those notions in his own Tuesday interview. He also said he and the Democrats he knows “respect the cowboy way and the code of the West.”

Chestek said he also believes the term “socialism” has been weaponized, and he voiced a desire for more nuanced discussions of public benefits.

Sen. Chris Rothfuss, also of Laramie, is one of two Democrats in the state Legislature’s 31-member upper chamber.

He said that because Democratic policy-makers prefer to focus on people and their specific needs, the party’s policy goals in Wyoming are bound to be distinct from elsewhere.

“Wyoming is not New York City, so what the people need in New York City is going to be very different from what the people need in the state of Wyoming,” he said, adding with a chuckle, “Our people want access to public lands. I don’t know that that’s necessarily a top issue in New York City, as an example.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Whether Purists Are Good For Everyone Else"}]

Foraying into some analysis, Rothfuss said the Democratic Party nationally is searching for identity and leadership.

 The lack of identity “leads to challenges for identifying that leadership,” said Rothfuss.

Each major party contains factions of purists, he said, “And they have a philosophy, and they think everyone should have that philosophy.”

On the one hand, said Rothfuss, purism pushes the party toward a “small tent” mindset. On the other hand, watching the purity faction in play helps the left pinpoint its aspirations and how well they might function in real life.

“And that’s also, unfortunately, where all the advocacy is. And I say unfortunately because I don’t think it’s health that we don’t have anyone advocating for moderation,” said Rothfuss. “There’s no passion for moderation.”

Crank voiced a darker view of the purist, or what he called the “extreme” faction in the Democratic Party, saying extremism divides and alienates people.

As an example, “The far left says fracking is bad, we should all ban fracking,” said Crank. “That’s (Sen.) Bernie Sanders’ position. That’s ridiculous.”

People can address potential environmental problems with the practice, he said, “but that’s very effective to produce oil and gas. We need to do that in Wyoming.”

Crank pointed to other extreme stances, such as some pro-choice groups’ support of partial-birth abortions, and some extreme left-versus-right clashes on whether people should have guns at all.

“Those rabid positions drive people apart, lead to conflict in our society and, I think, give us shitty candidates,” said Crank. 

While Wyoming Democrats aren’t filing for divorce, the Republicans are about to do so, said Crank.

He referenced a Monday story by Cowboy State Daily in which a new political action committee, Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming, has 

 on the populist-leaning Republican faction the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The notion that extremism divides people, while collaboration and pragmatism unite people, manifests through Wyoming’s Republican divide, said Crank.

“There’s a divorce going on. They just haven’t filed the paperwork quite yet,” he added.

Mandami rothfuss chestek

<title>Wyoming Democrats Say They’re Not Divorcing Party Over Mamdani, Socialism Movement | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Prominent Wyoming Democrats say they are not calling for a split in their party due to the growing socialist movement nationally. “Wyoming is not New York City,” so the issues are different, said state Sen. Chris Rothfuss.

Wyoming Democrats Say They’re Not Divorcing Party Over Mamdani, Socialism Movement

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

Libby Lane of Red Lodge, Montana, was going about her usual business Monday at the Top of the World Resort on the Beartooth Highway. As of 1:30 p.m., it was still snowing up there.

“We’ve got about three inches of snow, and it's still snowing,” Lane told Cowboy State Daily. “It's blowing and melting off the road, but the road looks slick, icy, and slushy.”

The only vehicle Lane had seen was a snowplow that drove past in its effort to clear the highway, heading for Cooke City.

“I was hoping they’d open it today,” she said. “I haven't heard anything from anybody. Sometimes we're the last to know. Unfortunately, we have to look for the cars coming over the pass to know when it’s open.”

The Beartooth Highway was temporarily closed at 4:53 p.m. Sunday in anticipation of incoming snow. Monday’s snow vindicated the precautionary closure.

This is Lane's fourth season living and working at the Top of the World on the Wyoming side of the pass. When the Beartooth Highway closes, she and her coworkers are stranded at the summit until the road is deemed safe enough to traffic to resume. 

However, this wasn’t unusual from Lane’s perspective. Snow-related closures, even in late June, are “not a surprise at all.” 

“It’s very common,” she said. “We got our boots out this morning and just kept working.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Yellowstone’s Dunraven Pass Closes"}]

Dunraven Pass in Yellowstone National Park also closed Monday morning due to “winter weather conditions.”

“We’re looking at an inch of snow in Cooke City, Montana,” said Tessa Stetzr, with the National Weather Service office in Billings. “We were forecasting around 1 to 2 inches along the Beartooth Pass and 6 inches in the higher elevations.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Snow also fell farther south in Wyoming."}]

Stuart Pierson of Centennial was heading over the Snowy Range toward Saratoga when he encountered “a pleasant surprise.”

“I left my house around 10:30 a.m., and there was light snow as I went over the top near Barbara Lake Road,” he said. “Nothing was sticking yet, but there was a lot of snow in the air.”

None of this winter weather was expected to escape the mountains, and a cooler-than-average Monday will give way to temperatures in the 80s and low 90s by July 4.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where’s That Coming From?"}]

The snow in northwest Wyoming came from a cold front moving across Montana, originating in the Pacific Northwest.

“There’s an upper-level low over Montana,” Stetzr said. “That's allowing cooler temperatures to make their way into the state and lowering the snow levels to around 7,000 feet.”

Lance VandenBoogart with the National Weather Service office in Riverton said that’s not unusual for northwest Wyoming or Yellowstone, even in the last days of June.

“Yellowstone and any high-elevation spot in northwest Wyoming can see snow any time of the year,” he said. “The high at Old Faithful was 44 degrees, and that’s not even record-breaking cold for this time of year.”

Still, there were cooler-than-average temperatures across Wyoming on Monday. Daytime highs were in the low 70s in central Wyoming and only in the mid-50s to mid-60s in the Bighorn Basin.

Many spots in Wyoming would welcome an inch or two of moisture. VandenBoogart said they’ll be going without.

“It’ll fizzle out by this evening,” he said. “This weather system will be weakening as it pushes through the mountains. The Bighorn Basin might see a couple of rain showers, but we’re not looking for much notable precipitation from this.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heat Of The Moment"}]

If it’s cool and wet on June 29, what does that mean for the upcoming celebrations of the United States 250th anniversary on July 4?

VandenBoogart and Stetzr agreed that Monday’s high-elevation snow was an anomaly. By Friday, it’ll look and feel like summer again.

“We'll continue to have daily chances for afternoon showers and thunderstorms, but we're expecting temperatures to return to the upper 70s and low 80s for the second half of the week,” Stetzr said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Central and southern Wyoming could get even warmer."}]

“We’re looking at the low to mid 80s through the middle of the week,” VandenBoogart said. “By the time we get to Friday, through the Independence Day holiday, we're going to be probably upper 80s to around 90, closer to mid-summer normals.”

As for the Beartooth Highway, the National Park Service said the road would be opened “when conditions improve.” Based on the amount of snow seen on webcams in Cooke City, that probably won’t be until Tuesday.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Don’t Read Into It"}]

After a record-breaking dry winter and spring, some might be inclined to see June snow on the Beartooth Highway as a promising sign. After all, El Niño’s on the way and promises to disrupt global weather patterns in a way that could, possibly, benefit Wyoming.

The latest outlook from the NWS’s Climate Prediction Center still favors above-average moisture for Wyoming this summer. VandenBoogart doesn’t think anyone should read into it too much.

“Climatology isn’t going to be your best forecast,” he said. “The latest update is a slight lean toward above-normal precipitation for the western half of Wyoming in July, August, and September. It's not a sure thing, just that the odds are a little better than normal.”

Meanwhile, the snow on the Beartooth Highway isn’t indicative of anything other than the fact that anything can happen at a 10,000-foot elevation.

“If Casper got snow right now, that would be impressive,” VandenBoogart said. “When you're getting it up in the mountains and Yellowstone, snow happens when these cold systems ride through.”

Libby lane snow 6 29 26

<title>Ho, Ho, Ho! Rare June Snow Closes Beartooth Highway, Parts Of Yellowstone | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Winter is back in Wyoming as a late June snowstorm closed the Beartooth Highway and Yellowstone's Dunraven Pass. At 9,400 feet, the Top of the World store recorded three inches of snow. “We got our boots out and just kept working," said Libby Lane.

Ho, Ho, Ho! Rare June Snow Closes Beartooth Highway, Parts Of Yellowstone

Anna-Louise Jackson

Public Lands

The Going-to-the Sun Highway has such a cult-like following that some Internet detectives have spent recent weeks analyzing the live webcam of a high-altitude parking lot just to catch a glimpse.

They’re now able to put boots on the ground as this iconic highway fully opened to motorists Monday after an eight-month winter closure.

Your take on this feverish obsession probably comes down to something simple: You’ve either experienced firsthand the beauty and grandeur of this stretch of road in Montana’s Glacier National Park — or you haven’t. 

For many people, there’s no middle ground.

There are practical reasons, too, why people go gaga about the Going-to-the-Sun. As the park’s sole east-west artery, it connects the two most-visited entrances and unlocks Glacier’s sprawling interior to recreationists for a scant four months of the year or so.

And as a National Historic Landmark, the highway is a destination unto itself. A slow, winding west-to-east journey takes visitors through lush valleys before steadily ascending along sheer cliffs with sweeping views of glaciers, alpine lakes, cascading waterfalls, and occasional glimpses of wildlife until it reaches Logan Pass atop the Continental Divide and descends once again.

Ranked the third most-scenic drive in the U.S. by Tripadvisor reviewers, people tend to throw around superlatives like “stunning,” “spectacular,” or “unforgettable” to describe it.

At the highway’s opening ceremony in July 1933, Montana’s then-governor Frank H. Cooney summed it up in a way that remains apt today: “We may confidently declare that there is no highway which will give the sightseer, the lover of the grandeur of the Creator’s handiwork, more thrills, more genuine satisfaction deep down in his being than will a trip over this road.”

A trip over the Going-to-the-Sun today wouldn't be possible were it not for a group of 1920s-era visionaries who first mapped this engineering marvel.

But the modern-day road crew deserves just as much credit.

It was while listening to a presentation by the park’s road supervisor a few years ago that local filmmaker Jordan Lefler became inspired.

“I thought how cool it would be to document that plowing process,” Lefler recalled. “It’s very orchestrated.”

He enlisted the help of his brother and fellow filmmaker Logan Lefler, and the duo initially set out to document that annual ritual, only to learn their access would be limited due to safety concerns. Undeterred, they decided to take a broader purview of a road that shouldn’t exist. 

And their timing couldn’t be more perfect: One day after the Going-to-the-Sun re-opened, the brothers pulled back the curtain on their documentary film that celebrates this road. 

” will premiere on Tuesday in Kalispell, launching a summer and fall screening tour that will hit various cities across Montana and potentially some places in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Beautiful Sweep of Road"}]

Part of what makes the road so iconic is the route itself.

Before construction began in the 1920s, engineers proposed three potential routes. One of those designs was "really hideous," Lefler said, featuring a dizzying dozen or so switchbacks, more like a utilitarian logging road.

Instead, today’s scenic highway uses the mountain’s natural topography as a guide and features only one official, albeit massive, hairpin switchback.

Dubbed “The Loop,” this switchback marks the transition into the white-knuckled portion of the drive for some people, as a low brick wall or guardrail is all that protects cars on one side of the road, while the other side hugs a sheer cliff

Born and raised in Arlee, Montana, about 115 miles south of the park on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Lefler said his love of both the outdoors and photography meant that he naturally gravitated to visiting Glacier quite frequently.

Now having spent so many hours behind the lens documenting this place he loves, he sees some aspects of the road in a new light.

“When I hit ‘The Loop’ area and see the road laid out ahead of me, I see how it blends in with the landscape,” Lefler said. “We have some people to thank for the beautiful sweep of the road we got today.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"First Impressions"}]

One of the beauties of this highway is that each journey up and down offers something new to experience even for regulars, while first-timers might feel a tinge of regret: 

 on his first visit to Glacier, and that’s saying something: His professional photography business takes him to plenty of spectacular places.

“It’s phenomenal,” the Kansas-based photographer said of his first experience driving the Going-to-the-Sun. “It’s easily one of the top roads in the United States, if not the world.”

When he arrived in 2022 to capture the fall foliage, Shannon quickly scrapped his pre-mapped itinerary because he was compelled to pull over dozens of times instead of the handful of stops he’d planned.

The vistas were perfect for his portfolio, but Shannon said it was hard to beat an opportunity to capture some close-ups of a family of black bears. He added nearly a dozen prints from that trip to a collection that celebrates destinations ranging from the Grand Tetons to the Swiss Alps.

Though aspects of Glacier remind Shannon of other places he’s photographed in the Canadian Rockies, he’s eager to return in summertime to photograph the park’s alpine wildflowers.

“There’s just so much to see, it’s really unique,” Shannon said. “I could go on and on about how beautiful that drive is.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Catch-22"}]

But the park’s growing popularity has proved problematic for locals who want to pop in for a spontaneous visit. Over the past five seasons, Glacier instituted a strict vehicle reservation system for peak visiting hours along the highway to combat the congestion that comes with 3 million annual visitors, nearly double the average seen from the 1980s through the early 2000s.

That controversial reservation system was eliminated for the 2026 season, though a three-hour parking limit at Logan Pass will be implemented this year — yet another attempt to encourage visitors to ditch their cars in lieu of other modes of transportation including free shuttles or paid tours aboard the park’s historic red jammer buses.

Still, the throng of tourists who travel along Flathead Lake each summer creates a Catch-22 for small business owners in Polson, about 70 miles south of West Glacier.

Polson’s relative proximity to the park doesn’t necessarily make a summertime visit any easier for fixtures at the town’s Friday farmers market like Wendi Arnold, co-owner of 

, and John Dalpiaz, owner of the apparel company 

Arnold isn’t sure a Glacier getaway is in the cards this year. A dwindling number of local dairy farms means that she and her husband already spend a lot of time on the road, making frequent three-hour round-trip journeys to Kalispell to fetch milk for their artisanal cheeses.

If Arnold is able to squeeze in a visit, she might opt to leave the driving to someone else by taking one of the red bus tours.

“You get to just be a passenger and focus on the majesty of it all,” Arnold said. “There’s just something about being in those glacial valleys—the vistas are spectacular.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Most Epic Experience"}]

Like Arnold, Dalpiaz isn’t sure he’ll make it to Glacier this summer.

But he’s had the good fortune of visiting the park so many times he can’t even remember his first time there — though he reckons it was before he could walk or talk — and has come to enjoy the park outside of peak season.

In fact, his “most epic” experience was a few years ago while biking the Going-to-the-Sun road with a friend before it opened to vehicle traffic, a popular springtime activity. 

When the duo spotted a slew of grizzly bears headed toward them, four or five in total, they pulled off the side of the road and hid behind a tree, watching as the bears ambled past.

“That was a trippy experience,” Dalpiaz recalled.

The Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana’s Glacier National Park, which opened for the summer Monday, is considered by many to be the most beautiful road in America. So be prepared to have plenty of company, human and otherwise, on the way to Logan Pass.

You Still Here? Monday, September 2, 2024

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