Wonderful West....

Two and a half weeks later....still in West Yellowstone. You might think "Aren't you bored yet?" but I'm really glad my plans worked out as they did. With no great skiing in New England yet, being in Montana this long has been awesome. The skiing here is great, if not perfect. Yes, the first week was very busy with an astonishing number of racers and master blasters taking to the trails, but when Sunday of that first week came the town emptied in literally a number of hours. These last two weeks I've seen fewer than ten other skiers on the trails each day. This weekend we have our first NorAm (North American) Cup races here in West and after three weeks of focused training and a couple of xc ski races, I am ready!

Now....pictures! Because I know that a blog without pictures is probably one of the more boring things to look at!

West Yellowstone Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center

Today Seth and I visiting the wolves and bears that reside at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. They had two packs of wolves and a bunch of bears. The bears are rotated in pairs into a display area so that they have privacy for a good portion of their day.

They had a lot of educational information displayed for us to read. Here Seth shows just how big a wolf print is compared to his own hand!

Seth eyeing the wolves from the safety and warmth of the building. It was really neat to get so close to them while still feeling that they were actually far enough away!

And the bears.....

Sam and Illie were rescued in Alaska as cubs when their mother disappeared and they wandered into a populated area and began taking food from humans. They are twins however Sam weighs in at 1050 lbs. while Illie is just (haha) 800 lbs. Those are some BIG animals!