The Reiners

Enjoying Decades of Caretaking

Interests: Country living, animal “family,” reading, writing books, meteorology and crafts.

After living more than seventy years, fifty-five of them in the mountains, Ralph Reiner has developed certain inalienable distastes. “We don’t like cities at all,” says Ralph.

He and his wife, Lorraine, first met in Yellowstone National Park in 1975. Ralph had previously spent eight years in Yellowstone as a Park Ranger Naturalist. Lorraine and her sister were visiting from Adelaide, South Australia. During a Twilight Tour, fate brought them to Ralph’s bus, and the connection was made.

Lorraine then traveled to Montana at Christmas to see what it was like to live in the snow, leaving 90 degree temperatures in Australia, to be greeted by 55 degrees below zero in Helena, MT. They were married in Bozeman, MT in December 1976.

The Reiners accepted a caretaking position near Boulder, Colorado, living in a modern two storied house on the side of a mountain. They then went to Echo Lake, CO, where Ralph was employed as Resident Manager for the University of Denver High Altitude Laboratory at 10,700 feet. He ran the Mt. Evans Research U.S. Weather Station, the second highest manned weather station in the country, recording winds up to 224mph and snowfall up to 500 inches.

They are currently caretaking on a large Montana farm, where Ralph does part-time work with tractors and cattle. They have published seven books and are working on a new one about Big Horn Country of Montana and Wyoming. The Reiners are very happy that they found the caretaking lifestyle to be so compatible with their many interests.