Sunrise in Yellowstone. This morning it wasn't foggy - perfect sunrise.
John saw the wolf groupies before I did - at the entrance of the Slough Creek Campground. We got there at about 6am, and by 6:30 or so the action had begun. There was a black bear WAY up on a hill that I saw through a ranger's scope, but he was out of view when John looked. Then some nice groupies showed up (by groupies we mean - these people live in other parts of the country, come to Yellowstone every summer and every vacation they have, get up early every morning to come to good wolf spotting locations, and know pretty much every wolf by number - all wolves have a number in the park) and they found the wolves in their fancy spotting scopes and very nicely allowed us to look through their scopes to see several wolves. I think in all we saw 6 or 7 different wolves. They had a den in the area, although the pup was now too big to fit in the den. But they still liked the area and hung around there. Must have made a fresh kill recently, as several of the wolves had big chunks of meat hanging out of their mouths. There were some grey wolves and some black wolves in the pack. Black ones easier to pick out in the scope. The grey ones blend in with the sage like mad. Apparently a lone wolf from a different pack had just come in to the area a couple days before and was trying to integrate in to the Slough Creek pack. The interaction was entertaining to watch. At one point I saw, through the scope, the new wolf on his back with all four feet in the air, and the rest of the pack sniffing him, tails wagging like mad. The whole experience was really cool, and the wolf groupies were super nice, knowledgeable, and totally willing to answer any questions anyone had. No photos of wolves, as they were really far away. But just to see them through the scope was cool.
The wolf groupies and all the other tourists who came to see wolves. We stayed til about 8, then went back to the car to warm up and to eat some breakfast (hooray for Charissa, who packed a nice little breakfast for us to take along)
The wolf den area - the den is somewhere around those two dead trees in the middle of the photo. The wolves hang under the trees when it gets hot out - keeping cool in the shade. In the morning when we were there they were all down the hill, by the creek.
We had some other wildlife sightings while we were watching wolves. There were also some elk and a buffalo down by the creek, as well as two sandhill cranes (pretty cool - I'd never seen one before til I saw them through the scope). Also while we were there, we heard a sudden high-pitched yipping sound - apparently there is a coyote den on a different hill, and they have pups. The yipping was the sound of the pups welcoming mom or dad home to the den ("Yeah! Food!!").
Eventually we left the Slough Creek wolf groupies, heading further east in Lamar Valley. We really expected to come across other wolf groupies in different parts of the valley, but no such luck. During our drive we spotted some other people pulled off looking at something. Turns out there were looking at a herd of buffalo, and if you hiked out a little ways also a herd of antelope. The antelope looked so tiny compared to the big old buffalo. Buffalo eventually got scared by something, or just decided it was time to go - they started running away from us (we were pretty far away so I don't think we scared them) and crossed over the river they were next to. Buffalo crossing a river is not exactly graceful!
The buffalo herd. There's some babies in there, too, although they are hard to pick out in this photo.
The buffalo picked a pretty place to hang out...
Those little dots over there in the sage are antelope. Cute little buggers.
Our little herd of buffalo running away from us. Here you can kind of see the babies - over to the left hand side. They are a little lighter brown.
Once our little buffalo herd left us, we got back in the car, drove half a mile, and saw what our buffalo were running toward. A HUGE herd of buffalo, across the river from the little herd.
The big herd of buffalo, with pretty snow capped mountains in the background
Apparently the buffalo didn't think we got a good enough view. Just a little ways after we left the big buffalo herd, this big guy was right in the road, just walking down the road. John took this picture out the driver's side window.
We stopped so we wouldn't hit him, and he decided that our car was a good one to walk in front of. John took this picture out our front windshield. Then he walked right past my window on the passenger side. I am sure he gave the bus load of people on the other side of the road something fun to look at!
Cute little wild flower, in front of the sage
We saw a few marmots on the way up the road to the lookout
Field of wild flowers, with amazing snow-capped mountains in the background.
What do you mean - John didn't have to WALK up that path yesterday to get to 9,000 feet? This way was much easier...
My cute husband. It's chilly up here in the morning. We did shed our pants and jackets that we wore while wolf watching, but haven't ditched the long sleeve shirts yet.
This is, I think, Clay Butte
I love the mountains. So amazing.
From the lookout tower
A pair of Mountain Bluebirds had a nest in the rafters of the tower. Here, the male bluebird sits on a flagpole with some food in his mouth, waiting for the stupid humans to get out of his way so he can get to his babies.
Wild flowers at the edge of the lookout tower. John thinks I am nuts to be taking photos of flowers, but I think they're pretty.
Eventually we left the Slough Creek wolf groupies, heading further east in Lamar Valley. We really expected to come across other wolf groupies in different parts of the valley, but no such luck. During our drive we spotted some other people pulled off looking at something. Turns out there were looking at a herd of buffalo, and if you hiked out a little ways also a herd of antelope. The antelope looked so tiny compared to the big old buffalo. Buffalo eventually got scared by something, or just decided it was time to go - they started running away from us (we were pretty far away so I don't think we scared them) and crossed over the river they were next to. Buffalo crossing a river is not exactly graceful!
The buffalo herd. There's some babies in there, too, although they are hard to pick out in this photo.
The buffalo picked a pretty place to hang out...
Those little dots over there in the sage are antelope. Cute little buggers.
Our little herd of buffalo running away from us. Here you can kind of see the babies - over to the left hand side. They are a little lighter brown.
Once our little buffalo herd left us, we got back in the car, drove half a mile, and saw what our buffalo were running toward. A HUGE herd of buffalo, across the river from the little herd.
The big herd of buffalo, with pretty snow capped mountains in the background
Apparently the buffalo didn't think we got a good enough view. Just a little ways after we left the big buffalo herd, this big guy was right in the road, just walking down the road. John took this picture out the driver's side window.
We stopped so we wouldn't hit him, and he decided that our car was a good one to walk in front of. John took this picture out our front windshield. Then he walked right past my window on the passenger side. I am sure he gave the bus load of people on the other side of the road something fun to look at!I'm sure we saw plenty of other buffalo and elk on the drive east, but by that time were had pretty much had our fill of them, so we didn't stop. Our destination was Cooke City, just outside of Yellowstone to the east, and then up part of the Beartooth Highway which goes from Cooke City to Red Lodge, Montana (we didn't go all the way to Red Lodge) on "the most beautiful highway in the country." It was pretty amazing, and just the fact that the road could be built and maintained here was incredible. Poor John had sore shoulders for DAYS after driving this highway. It's a bit steep and windy.
John looks cute in a photo for his mom, in front of some gorgeous mountains. Just outside of Cooke City, Montana.
John looks cute in a photo for his mom, in front of some gorgeous mountains. Just outside of Cooke City, Montana.
We headed further up the road, then up a dirt road turn-out up tot eh Clay Butte Lookout Tower. There was a nice volunteer there, who lives there for the entire month of July. He usually lives in New Hampshire. In August two different couples will split the volunteer duty. Not a bad gig, eh? It's pretty up there.
Cute little wild flower, in front of the sage
We saw a few marmots on the way up the road to the lookout
Field of wild flowers, with amazing snow-capped mountains in the background.
What do you mean - John didn't have to WALK up that path yesterday to get to 9,000 feet? This way was much easier...
My cute husband. It's chilly up here in the morning. We did shed our pants and jackets that we wore while wolf watching, but haven't ditched the long sleeve shirts yet.
This is, I think, Clay Butte
I love the mountains. So amazing.
From the lookout tower
A pair of Mountain Bluebirds had a nest in the rafters of the tower. Here, the male bluebird sits on a flagpole with some food in his mouth, waiting for the stupid humans to get out of his way so he can get to his babies.
Wild flowers at the edge of the lookout tower. John thinks I am nuts to be taking photos of flowers, but I think they're pretty.We drove back down the skinny gravel road from the lookout tower and continued east. Didn't take long before we saw a couple people pulled over on the side of the road looking at something. We're no good at spotting wildlife, but we're EXCELLENT at spotting people spotting wildlife! What'd they see this time? A nice little black bear.
Black bear takes a little snooze in the sunshine, maybe 50 yards away from the road. He drew a bit of a crowd - a nice group of older people, plus a couple who were riding through the park on their motorcycle and told us how they'd met a buffalo in the road, on a bridge. Must look HUGE when you're on a motorcycle!
The nice group of older folks wouldn't believe me that this was a black bear. They got thrown off by the bear's cinnamon colored butt. They thought for sure it was a grizzly bear (no way - it didn't have a hump behind its shoulders) or a brown bear (they're out of luck with that guess - brown bears don't live here). Eventually the bear got tired of us and wandered in to the woods.
Stopped next at this pretty little waterfall overlook
There's still a ridiculous amount of snow up here
John shivers next to a remaining snow pile. Brrr!
Check out this road. Crazy, eh? It was pretty amazing
This is a terrible picture of me, but in my defense - I was completely freezing my butt off! The next picture will show why... We're up a little ways!
Almost 11,000 feet! No wonder it's cold!
Our turn-around point in Montana
I've always wanted to live in Montana. Still do. In the summer, at least...
Black bear takes a little snooze in the sunshine, maybe 50 yards away from the road. He drew a bit of a crowd - a nice group of older people, plus a couple who were riding through the park on their motorcycle and told us how they'd met a buffalo in the road, on a bridge. Must look HUGE when you're on a motorcycle!
The nice group of older folks wouldn't believe me that this was a black bear. They got thrown off by the bear's cinnamon colored butt. They thought for sure it was a grizzly bear (no way - it didn't have a hump behind its shoulders) or a brown bear (they're out of luck with that guess - brown bears don't live here). Eventually the bear got tired of us and wandered in to the woods.
Stopped next at this pretty little waterfall overlook
There's still a ridiculous amount of snow up here
John shivers next to a remaining snow pile. Brrr!
Check out this road. Crazy, eh? It was pretty amazing
This is a terrible picture of me, but in my defense - I was completely freezing my butt off! The next picture will show why... We're up a little ways!
Almost 11,000 feet! No wonder it's cold!
Our turn-around point in Montana
I've always wanted to live in Montana. Still do. In the summer, at least...
OK, I admit it. I slept for a while on the way back down the Beartooth. As well as for a good ways through the Lamar Valley once we got back in to Yellowstone. Poor John. I wasn't very good company. I did wake up in time to see some people looking at something in the distance. What was it? We stopped to check it out - turns out it was two antelope, this time much closer than the ones we saw this morning.
Up on a hill side, grazing away
They looked much bigger this time - helps when they're closer than half a mile away!
This photo is entertaining for two reasons. 1) the antelope in the background was having a "stand-off" with the people up the trail from us. The people eventually gave way and the antelope wandered up the trail. 2) the antelope in the foreground is "copping a squat" for a nice poop... :-)
John was intrigued by the one layer of rock formation at the very top of the canyon. It looks like vertical columns. What made that?
Here's a little closer view of the layer of columns.
Up on a hill side, grazing away
They looked much bigger this time - helps when they're closer than half a mile away!
This photo is entertaining for two reasons. 1) the antelope in the background was having a "stand-off" with the people up the trail from us. The people eventually gave way and the antelope wandered up the trail. 2) the antelope in the foreground is "copping a squat" for a nice poop... :-)We continued out of Lamar Valley and decided we had enough time to head back to Canyon Country to see the Brink of the Lower Falls and maybe take short little hike on the South Rim. Here's a few photos from our drive down to the canyon:
John was intrigued by the one layer of rock formation at the very top of the canyon. It looks like vertical columns. What made that?
Here's a little closer view of the layer of columns.A little further down the canyon we spotted (we're good!) some people looking through a scope at something, at one of the turn-offs. So we stopped, listened to the gossip for a bit, and figured out that there was an osprey nest on the top of a dead tree, just down from the turn-off. We saw an osprey flying down the river, then looked through the scope and saw a female osprey sitting on her nest, with a few little baby osprey under her. She was shading from the hot afternoon sun. Pretty cool!
Osprey flying down the river
Even further down the road, there was another huge traffic jam. The reason was this guy - bull moose, laying down in a nice cool shady spot by a creek. How anyone ever spotted him, I have no idea. The rangers directing traffic were unimpressed - they were supposed to be bear control, not moose control!
We finally got back to the North Rim of the Canyon and started hiking toward the Brink of the Lower Falls. On the way there in a field we came across this little deer. I have no idea what kind of deer they have in the park. This is either a whitetail deer with a really dark face, or a mule deer. Any guesses?
At the Brink of the Lower Falls, we could look across and see the stairs we had traversed on Tuesday with the kids, on Uncle Tom's Trail. Holy crap! We climbed all those stairs???
The Yellowstone River and the canyon, below the Lower Falls
Another view of the canyon, with some of the mist from the falls
The Lower Falls, roaring over the edge and crashing down in to the river. This overlook was super impressive. Look how THICK the water is here, going over the edge.
John is mesmerized by waterfalls. This might have been one of his favorite places of our entire trip. Looking at the water rushing by made me a little bit ill, but John loved it.
This is a cool shot. John at the top, watching the water fall over the edge. I almost fit the whole falls in to the shot.
John and I trade places, and I hang on the the railing so I don't fall in...
After we hiked back out of the Brink of the Falls (9 switchbacks in the trail later...) we drove over to the South Rim, to the Artists Point overlook again. There was a trail there that we talked Gracie out of hiking down. It was a 2 mile trail, round trip, to Point Sublime. While this wasn't exactly off the beaten path, it was about as far away from crowds as we'd been the entire time we were in Yellowstone. Leave the overlooks and the crowds thin considerably. So we were doing a few bear shout-outs along the way - wanted to make sure we didn't inadvertently stumble in to a bear. No such luck, though.
I don't know if this is looking toward the Lower Falls or down river from them. But the entire canyon is gorgeous.
The colors are amazing. Where does the pink come from? And the dark, dark red?
A couple of red hoodoos frame this canyon shot
John is still looking chipper toward the end of a very long day. But we're not done yet!
Osprey flying down the river
Even further down the road, there was another huge traffic jam. The reason was this guy - bull moose, laying down in a nice cool shady spot by a creek. How anyone ever spotted him, I have no idea. The rangers directing traffic were unimpressed - they were supposed to be bear control, not moose control!
We finally got back to the North Rim of the Canyon and started hiking toward the Brink of the Lower Falls. On the way there in a field we came across this little deer. I have no idea what kind of deer they have in the park. This is either a whitetail deer with a really dark face, or a mule deer. Any guesses?
At the Brink of the Lower Falls, we could look across and see the stairs we had traversed on Tuesday with the kids, on Uncle Tom's Trail. Holy crap! We climbed all those stairs???
The Yellowstone River and the canyon, below the Lower Falls
Another view of the canyon, with some of the mist from the falls
The Lower Falls, roaring over the edge and crashing down in to the river. This overlook was super impressive. Look how THICK the water is here, going over the edge.
John is mesmerized by waterfalls. This might have been one of his favorite places of our entire trip. Looking at the water rushing by made me a little bit ill, but John loved it.
This is a cool shot. John at the top, watching the water fall over the edge. I almost fit the whole falls in to the shot.
John and I trade places, and I hang on the the railing so I don't fall in...After we hiked back out of the Brink of the Falls (9 switchbacks in the trail later...) we drove over to the South Rim, to the Artists Point overlook again. There was a trail there that we talked Gracie out of hiking down. It was a 2 mile trail, round trip, to Point Sublime. While this wasn't exactly off the beaten path, it was about as far away from crowds as we'd been the entire time we were in Yellowstone. Leave the overlooks and the crowds thin considerably. So we were doing a few bear shout-outs along the way - wanted to make sure we didn't inadvertently stumble in to a bear. No such luck, though.
I don't know if this is looking toward the Lower Falls or down river from them. But the entire canyon is gorgeous.
The colors are amazing. Where does the pink come from? And the dark, dark red?
A couple of red hoodoos frame this canyon shot
John is still looking chipper toward the end of a very long day. But we're not done yet!On our way south toward the canyons we noticed a few pull-outs where groups of people were looking far in to the valley with scopes. We didn't stop when going south, but decided to stop on our way back north. What was all the fuss? A big old grizzly bear! A very nice man let us get an awesome view of the bear through his scope. Hooray for nice people and scopes. The bear had a HUGE hump behind his shoulders (now we know what that means! Hard to picture when just reading a description) and a really light blonde colored muzzle. He (or she) was digging around in the dirt looking for good roots or bugs, and wandering through the sage. Very cool. This is how I want to see a grizzly - a mile away through a scope! :-)
This was marked as prime grizzly territory, and closed to hiking. Too bad - it's a beautiful valley.
John "scopes out" the grizzly bear
We thanked the nice man and continued our drive. Our goal was to make it back to Gardiner in time to have dinner at the Italian restaurant, but all this darned wildlife kept making us stop to look at it! We got back to the spot where the moose was earlier, and Mr. Moose was still there - this time up and grazing and moving around. So, of course, we had to stop again!
This was marked as prime grizzly territory, and closed to hiking. Too bad - it's a beautiful valley.
John "scopes out" the grizzly bear
Mr. Moose, up and grazing
It was close to dusk, so the pictures didn't turn out the best
It was close to dusk, so the pictures didn't turn out the best
Finally we started heading toward home and dinner. We had one final stop to make, though, to check out the Petrified Tree. The good thing about making this stop at 9:00 PM is that there's no crowds!
All about Scared Trees...
The Petrified Tree. Yep, looks like a tree made out of rock
Who is that cute boy up behind the tree?
John doing his best moose impression. Apparently there was a moose spotted in the area early this morning, so we were hoping to spot another one tonight. John was the only moose we spotted. OK, so we were a little nuts by this point. We'd been up and going for about 16 hours...
We dragged ourselves in to Gardiner right at 10:00 PM, parked right in front of the Italian restaurant, and were prepared to go fall asleep in our food, dirty and smelling like bug spray. HOWEVER - they stop seating people at 10. Damn!! This whole town closes down at 10. What to do, what to do? We kept searching and found a pizza place that was open til 10:30, carry out only. Sold! One calzone and a shower later, and we fell in to bed. TOMORROW we were sleeping in!
All about Scared Trees...
The Petrified Tree. Yep, looks like a tree made out of rock
Who is that cute boy up behind the tree?
John doing his best moose impression. Apparently there was a moose spotted in the area early this morning, so we were hoping to spot another one tonight. John was the only moose we spotted. OK, so we were a little nuts by this point. We'd been up and going for about 16 hours...
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