This Month in Yellowstone
Jim Peaco - Carcass & Fire Truck

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It was near zero (F) on January 6 when Jim Peaco, Park Photographer, stopped on his way in to work to photograph the animals feeding at a carcass in the Lamar Valley. The ravens caught his attention first. There were at least 55 of them. Jim plans to project one of the slides to get a better head count. After stopping, he also noticed two bald eagles, two golden eagles, coyotes, and magpies as well as all the ravens. The coyotes would occasionally chase the birds off the carcass and eat for a short while. Then they would wander off and the birds would come back in.

When Jim arrived at his office, he phoned the wolf office to see if they could tell him anything about the carcass. They said that it was an elk that had been killed by the Slough Creek Pack wolves earlier that same morning.

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Jim was asked to go down to Old Faithful to document the delivery of a new fire truck that was purchased to protect the structures at Old Faithful in the winter. Jim photographed it in front of two of the buildings it will be protecting, the Old Faithful Inn and the Snow Lodge. He also took one photo of the truck being run through its paces. It was able to travel through unpacked 2-foot deep snow at about 20 mph without a problem.

The tracks that replace the wheels are called mattracks. They were invented by a fellow in Minnesota who worked from a drawing his 11 year old son drew. His son, Matt, was dreaming up a way that a car could safely be driven out on lake ice for ice fishing purposes. Little did he know that his simple sketch would inspire his engineer father to invent a new means of getting safety equipment around Yellowstone.

I mentioned to Jim that Carol Koepcke sent us a photo of the old fire truck that was also on tracks. He laughed saying, “You can walk faster than that thing goes.” He thought the delivery of the new truck represented a “vast improvement for fire protection for buildings at Old Faithful.”