We are winding up day 5 of our great Yellowstone/Glacier
adventure, so I thought I’d take a little time to recap.
We left Friday morning and drove to Lamar, CO for the night.
It was a long, tiring drive. Not much to see between there and home. The next
day was not a lot better. The haze from wildfires had the mountains obscured in
the distance on our drive through Colorado. We finally started seeing some
terrain by the time we got to Wyoming, where we spent the second night (in
Casper). The wind was CRAZY there, so we didn’t get out and do anything. We
ordered a nice supper and brought it back to our room and relaxed.
Day 3 was when things really started getting good. We had a
short assembly in our hotel room and then headed to Montana. We had a little
cabin in Cooke City, which is just outside of the NE entrance to Yellowstone.
We had a light supper and settled in for the night. Since we planned to hit the
park EARLY Monday morning, we had an early bedtime.
Dennis planned our stay so that we could get to the Lamar
Valley at daylight, for the best viewing of wildlife. We had barely entered the
park, when we saw the moose: a big bull, his “intended” and her yearling calf,
and a young “want-to-be” bull. We spent a good bit of time watching them and
taking pictures and then headed to the “wolf hotspot”. The professional photographers
and wolf tours were already set up. We broke out our binoculars and started
glassing. We could see them, but they were about 800+ yards away, so it was
hard to make out much detail. They weren’t really moving much at that time
either. So we soon left and drove on to see what we could see. We found some
pronghorn that were close enough to photograph, enjoyed the resident herd of
elk in Mammoth Springs village, and then walked up and photographed the
springs. I struggled a bit with the altitude once we got to climbing those stairs,
but I made it to the top. Mammoth Springs is such a unique place! Even though
we’d seen it 6 years ago, it was worth the repeat visit!
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One of MANY cascades
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Mammoth Springs
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Coyote pack
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Just a small waterfall beside the road
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After visiting the springs, we found a picnic area and had
lunch. Then it was on to the Lower Yellowstone Falls…gorgeous! We saw a pack of
coyotes out hunting and then went to see the most famous resident at
Yellowstone, currently. A BIG grizzly bear had killed a bull elk on the 18th
(in the river) and dragged it to the river bank. He had been staying on top of
it ever since, eating away on it to put on fat for the winter. We had to park
about a mile away and walk back to the area in order to get pictures. It was
CRAZY crowded! It was certainly worth it though! He was on the far side of the
river about 200 yards away. You could see him with the naked eye, but could see
him very well with a decent pair of binoculars. We heard this morning that a
pack of wolves showed up to try to take some of the elk away from him. THAT
would have been amazing to see!
Tuesday morning, we got another early start and arrived at
the moose spot just as it was getting daylight. The moose were more active that
morning. The young bull kept trying to join the others, but the big daddy wasn’t
having any of that! He kept charging after him and chasing him off. That was
fun to watch! Then we stopped back by the wolf area, and we were able to see
them up running around…still far off in the distance, though. We saw more
pronghorn, mule deer (including fawns), another coyote, and the elk at Mammoth
Springs. We also made the rounds looking at waterfalls and taking some “back
roads” to see things more closely. We really enjoyed that! The aspens are
really starting to turn, so we saw some beautiful colors. The huckleberries are
also changing to a brilliant red. While driving down one of the back roads, I
noticed a deer off to the side of the road in some trees. We stopped to see if
we could photograph her. Dennis had the camera going in one way, and I circled
around on the other side of her to try to distract her. She was well hidden in
the brush, but we ended up having a staring contest for a good while, so Dennis
could have time to get some pictures. I tried moving on past her to force her
closer to Dennis, but she spooked and ran off. It was a fun little venture! We
visited a few more waterfalls along the way and just enjoyed the magnificent
beauty that is Yellowstone! We decided to stay in the park for supper, so we
went to a restaurant and ordered a couple of burgers to go. We found a nice
shady rock fence to have our supper and were quickly joined by a bunch of
ravens. The ravens of Yellowstone are definitely opportunists! Every time we
brought out food, they showed up looking for handouts.
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Bull Moose rubbing on a tree
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Aspen leaves in the sunshine
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Wild swan
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My stare-down partner
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On our way back to our cabin, we rounded a corner and saw a
small bunch of cars parked on the side of the road, with people crowding around
and taking pictures. We asked what they had found, and it was a young black
bear, just down the embankment from the road. We quickly parked and joined the
crowd. He was so cute…busy eating and not paying a bit of attention to his
admirers. My first thought was “where is his momma?” I was a little nervous
until we got back in the car. About the time we were leaving, a ranger was
pulling up. They would set up crowd control straight away! They have strict
guidelines about how far away you are supposed to stay from animals…especially
the dangerous ones. After we went a little ways down the road, we came to a
road block…of buffalo. A couple of bulls had decided to have a square-off in
the middle of the road, so we were all stuck there for a good while. We finally made it back to our cabin and
relaxed for the evening. I had planned to stay up late, since we were going to
sleep in this morning. By 9:50, I had to pack it in. After 12+ hours in the
park, I was exhausted!
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Grizzly scavenging from wolves
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We did sleep in this morning…until almost 7:00! I cooked our
last breakfast in the cabin, bacon and pancakes, and we packed and loaded up to
move on to our next lodgings in Gardiner, MT. We got into the park around 9:00,
instead of our usual 6:30, but it worked to our advantage today. The moose were
the closest we had seen them! The cow and yearling were very close to the road,
and the big bull was a little further back. (The young bull had obviously given
up…he was nowhere to be seen.) Dennis was able to get some great pictures of
them! Then we moved on to the wolf area, and they were a little closer. We were
able to spot them immediately. After watching them a short while, we were able
to determine that they had made a kill overnight. After glassing them for about
15 minutes, I noticed a big black blob emerging from the wood line about 200-300
yards west of them. I turned my binoculars on it, and it was a grizzly! He was
quickly moving towards the wolves, and they were taking off in the opposite
direction! He made it down where the wolves had been and scavenged around a
bit, then headed back to the west. I watched him as he made his progress
through the sagebrush. All of a sudden he stopped. It was then that I noticed a
big gray wolf heading in the opposite direction. It passed right by him! I was hoping
to see a little action, but they respected each other’s space and both
continued on their way.
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Wolves
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We drove a little further down the road, trying to track the
bear’s progress. We heard that there was another bear in the area, too. We
reached a point where we saw 2 big black blobs running towards each other, so
we stopped to glass and see if it was the bear after a buffalo. It was 2
buffalo bulls and a grizzly chasing each other! We couldn’t tell if it was the
same bear or a different one. The sparring match didn’t last long, and the bear
headed back up the mountain into the trees. How exciting!
We drove on through the park until we came to Gardiner. It
was too early to check in, so we stopped for lunch at a Subway located in a gas
station. We got our food and went outside to eat. We found a shady spot on a
log, overlooking the river, and had lunch. We noticed about 300 yards downriver
from us was a herd of elk heading down into the river. We thought they were
going to cross it, but they just stood around in the water getting drinks and
cooling off (I guess) for a while, then headed back up the same direction they
had come from. After eating, we headed out of town towards the inn where we had
our reservations for the next 3 nights. The road ran right along side the river
the whole way, and there were two large herds of elk resting on the other side
of the river. We stopped and glassed and got pictures. The boss bull was HUGE!
He had a harem of probably 75 or more. There were several smaller bulls lying
out away from the main group. We can actually see the elk from our room! We
used the rest of the afternoon doing laundry, getting settled in and relaxing. We
drove back into town to get some pizza for supper. Deer and elk were
everywhere! We made friends with a momma Muley and her twins in the parking lot
while waiting on our pizza. We also heard an elk bugle right in the middle of
town. What a place! Tomorrow morning, Lord willing, we’ll head back into
Yellowstone for more adventures!
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Wading elk
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Friendly Muleys
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