Northwest Trek 7-6-14

Pets aren't allowed at Northwest Trek, so Dave and I had to leave Adventure Dog home for this adventure.  It was a beautiful hot sunshiny day and neither of us had ever been to Northwest Trek.  Despite the heat of the day, the parking lots and walkways are well-designed under existing forest, so we didn't overheat and we didn't come back to a furnace either.  We just completely enjoyed the experience!
With your admission to Northwest Trek, you get a "tram" ride included.  This is a 3 sectioned bus that takes you on a guided tour of the large hooved mammal section of the park.  Our guide, Mike, was super informative and I learned a lot about antlers and horns, behaviors of the hooved mammals there and history of the area.  We saw bison, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer and caribou.  This was a GREAT time of year to go, as most of these animals had babies at their sides (awwwww).  The hooved mammal we did not see was a moose.  Apparently the park has 3 of them, but they must have been forwarned how much I would love to see a moose and brought my camera, so they were all hiding.  Along the nearly hour long ride, we also saw Canada geese, a beaver and I glimpsed a weasel run across the road but missed the pair of trumpeter swans.  Here are some of the pictures of the deer, goats and sheep we saw.

Besides the tram ride animals, we spent a couple lovely hours meandering around viewing the various other northwest denizons' enclosures.  It did seem to get busier in the later afternoon, but this park was far far less crowded than the zoos usually are and I felt we were able to view the animals better as well. 
The other animals included black bear, brown bear, cougar (which we didn't see), lynx, coyotes, raccoons, fishers, beavers, otters, a wolverine, birds of prey, and wolves among others.  (sorry a couple of these are blurry)

 

 

 

 

This last picture is of a fisher who is being lured toward her 'holding area' with meat.  She was being lured there by the keepers who were then going to have to go in and retrieve someone's water bottle that was thrown or dropped in.  I was really impressed with all the staff I interacted with.   Even though there were several of them trying to solve the water bottle issue, they still took the time to explain the situation, answer people's questions and didn't mind that I was bobbing around in the way trying to get pictures and video.  There was another staff members feeding the beavers and she also answered my question about what they were being fed in a very friendly and thorough way. 

I was super excited to see a wolverine up close and completely charmed by this formidable animal.

I highly recommend Northwest Trek and will definitely go again!