The National Bison Range in Moiese celebrated its 103rd birthday on Monday, but it was refuge visitors who received a gift – a bouquet of wildflowers.
A weekend trip over the 19-mile Red Sleep Mountain Drive revealed the range to be in full bloom. Among the flowers seen were fields of golden arrowleaf balsamroot interspersed with purple larkspur, patches of red prairie smoke, stalks of yellow paintbrush, small white prairie stars, bunches of bluish Jacob’s Ladder and wild hyacinth, and more. Bitterroots have yet to bloom, but their green tendrils are sprouting from rocks near the top of the mountain.
In addition to wildflowers, there was plenty of wildlife to see: Bison, a black bear, pronghorns, deer and a variety of birds. We missed the bighorn sheep, but they’re out there somewhere, too.
If you take a drive up to the Bison Range in the near future, be sure to stretch your legs on the half-mile round-trip Bitterroot Trail and the 1-mile round-trip High Point Trail near the top of the drive. There’s also a mile-long nature trail near the picnic area.
Check out more photos from the Bison Range here.
