Pronghorns and Prickly Pears and Bison…oh my! Thoughts on Grasslands National Park

Submitted by Alexander Muth, winner of the Find the Baby Bison Contest

Alexander loving the view from the top of 70 mile Butte

We’re back.  We all had a great trip out west. It’s hard to pick out highlights, as it all seems like highlights to me.

My brother Isaac says the scariest part was seeing the bison by the side of the road at night.  Lenny didn’t like the hiking, but he really enjoyed all the food and staying up late by the campfire for the singing and s’mores and stories. My father especially loved seeing pronghorns and a badger.

I liked the black footed ferret hunt, though we didn’t see any. I also liked all the hikes to places like the prairie dog town where we saw bison and coyotes, prickly pears and even a greater short-horned lizard (Nicole’s favorite, and very rare!), as well as prairie dogs;  and to 70-Mile Butte, where the view was amazing. What an amazing variety of wildlife and landscape there was in one short trip.

Later we drove to the East Block of Grasslands National Park, where we saw two Triceratops radiuses.  The smaller one was full of little holes, and it looked a bit like pumice, but with smaller, closer-together holes.  This means that it was a younger one, growing fast, and shows that it was warm blooded, an important discovery. That was cool.

Isaac, Alexander and Lenny examine a Triceratops radius

Everyone there was quite friendly and kind, and I am really grateful for the opportunity I was given to see this amazing part of our country.