Yellowstone Part Deux

We have been busy, busy, busy, and having a fantastic time, hence the long break in posts.  It has been an absolutely spectacular visit to the park this year!  It always is wonderful, but we have observed things we have never seen before and feel very fortunate to have done so.  I'll get to that in a bit.  This is a long post, I hope I don't wear you out or worse, drive you away.  There is a ton of pictures that mostly I will keep small to save some room, remember you can enlarge them by double clicking.  

Here we go.  Karen left us Thursday headed to Albuquerque, so we took advantage of that day by washing the coach and the Jeep, pretty exciting so far, huh?  Anyway, up very early and into the park we went.  

First we pass a lone Bison enjoying the peaceful moment.

Taking a rest

Working our way around by the falls on the Yellowstone River and the canyon it formed.

Lower Falls in the distance

Lower Falls

Another beautiful view out to Mt Holmes, a 10,336' peak.

Mt Holmes

After passing one of the guard sentinels of the park,

Watching

we came upon a Coyote intent on catching lunch.  We watched for awhile, and after numerous leaps, he was successful in his endeavors.

Success, and Yummy!

As I mentioned earlier, Jan and I have a favorite overlook where we have heard elk bugling in the distance.  We did get a chance to hear one up close and personal in our entry to the park the next morning well before sunrise, in fact it was almost TOO close and personal!

On the road with velvet still hanging from his rack

He did bugle for us though!  We made our way into Lamar Valley by sunrise, a mere 72 miles from our campground, yeah, I can hear the groans.  It's worth it, believe me.

Sunrise in Lamar Valley

There are two major places in the park where you can possibly see wolves, Lamar Valley and Hayden Valley.  Wolves are what interest us the most, we enjoy the other wildlife, but the wolves are icing on the cake.  This morning we almost missed them.  We drove up the valley searching and searching, going as far east as we had ever seen them, turned around, went back and forth and decided it wasn't our day, so we headed out of the valley.  We were almost all the way out when we noticed a car in a pull off with radio antennas all over it.  A lot of the official wolfers track the wolves that are collared, so we pulled in, and as we did the girl in the car, backed out and headed back into the valley, we turned around again and followed her to the far eastern reaches of the valley to find a gaggle of people out on a knoll about 1/4mile off the highway with tons of spotting scopes.  When you see people with spotting scopes gathered it is usually a sign of something special.  We grabbed our scope and binoculars and camera and off we went in time to see 8 wolves!  The gentleman next to us said they had been watching them all morning and there were actually 9, but we weren't able to see them all.  You have to understand in most cases these wolves are a LONG way off, perhaps as much as a mile, so the scope is a real asset.  Jan did try to take some pictures, but it really was too far.  I have one photo and if you look hard you can make out a black wolf in the center of the picture.  Understand with the scope you can almost count their whiskers!

Black wolf in the middle

Lamar Valley is where most of the Bison move to for the winter, lots of forage, and they are making their way there now.  We saw hundreds of Buff all over the valley.  In addition there were many Pronghorn Antelope as well.  The Elk, the primary food source of the wolves are still scattered about in anticipation of the rut, so they haven't moved into the Valley yet or down towards Jackson, WY, another huge wintering area for them.

Munching away

Calling to his buddies

An Antelope commingling

A teenager

Children playing around

A  Pronghorn Antelope buck

After our fun in Lamar Valley we headed around to Hayden Valley.  They are doing raod construction near Tower Falls on a very narrow road perched over a canyon.  It's down to one lane traffic and right in the midst of the construction, we encountered a bunch of Big Horn Sheep youngsters.

Hazy through the window

I guess the horns grow at different rates?

Cute

Passed another Bald Eagle as we went.

Now, as to Hayden Valley.  There is a popular overlook that is usually busy as it affords a great view out and down the valley where another wolf pack hangs out.  We stopped there with Karen earlier in the week and talked to several people there.  One couple were telling us they had seen wolves very early that morning, but that they had left, and that there was a dying Buffalo up on the hill that had been there for a couple days, but had gone down and was unable to get up.  They pointed out the spot and said you couldn't see it at that point because it was down in the grass, but it would afford a great opportunity for Grizzlies and wolves in the future.  Well, you hear a lot of different things as you travel about, and we could not see any sign of any Buffalo on that slope so we weren't entirely sure if what they said was true.  So we pulled into this overlook after Lamar and looked around and sure enough up on the hillside was the signs of a carcass, several people said they had seen a Grizzly come down and feed on it, followed by several wolves, but all had left.  MAN O MAN, were we disappointed!!!  A few people said that they typically fed on a large animal for several days and that they would probably be back.  So we planned to return the next morning hoping we would be lucky.  I should attempt to describe Hayden Valley.  It is a beautiful expanse of undulating terrain mostly covered with golden grass this time of year, interspersed with patches of sagebrush, bordered by pine forest with the Yellowstone River meandering through.  It is gorgeous!  

We got up early the next morning and got to the Hayden overlook by sunrise to already find 20 people or so.  Sure enough up on the hillside about a mile away were two Grizzlies tearing into what was left of the carcass with a pack of 6 wolves off to the side about 25 yards away waiting their turn!  This was an extraordinary sight!  Again it is just too far to take pictures of, even the folks with huge lens weren't able to do it justice.  I have a photo that just gives the impression of what you could see with your naked eye, the black spot in the center is the carcass.

Dining area
The two larger black dots on the left side are
actually Grizzly bears

This is a scene most folks will never see.  We feel awful lucky to have experienced it.  It was so cool watching for several hours.  The wolf pack called Mollie's Pack and was led by an Alpha female, a dark wolf.  There were 4 grey wolf pups, essentially teenagers at this point.  The Alpha was just lying in the sage, while the pups were jumping and racing around.  Every once in a while one of the pups would go over to the carcass only to get swatted away by one of the Grizzlies, it was too cool!  After a bit, one of the Grizzlies wandered off into the woods, and the fact that there was only one left emboldened the wolves to move in to share in the bounty.  The remaining Grizzly tolerated them for the most part, only swatting when they got too close.  It was a stunning several hours until the Grizzly moved off, the wolves ate for awhile more then sauntered away as well.  What an experience!

While all this was going on a single elk cow wandered along the river about a mile away.

With all the excitement over, we had lunch and went around to Old Faithful.  In addition to Old Faithful itself, the Inn is quite special.  It was built in 1903 and 1904 and is the largest log hotel in the world.  It towers 7 stories all built with logs and limbs.  It has a massive stone fireplace that towers 85 feet tall and is comprised of over 500 tons of stone, it is 16 feet square on the bottom with a firebox on each side.  Most of the inside lobby area towers 70 plus feet above up to the "Crow's Nest", a treehouse looking balcony where musicians used to play.  An earthquake in 1959 damaged the integrity of the hotel so the Crow's Nest is closed to the public now, but construction is underweigh and hopefully soon it will again open to the public.  Here's a couple of shots of the hotel, Old Faithful, and the Upper Geyser Basin surrounding the hotel.

Chimney from the outside

Detail using limbs

Inside the lobby

Fireplace

Crow's Nest

View across the geysers

Old Faithful!

The minerals and acid in the geysers grow other worldly algae

A few Bison hanging out nearby

Water just gushing out of the ground

As we continued around we caught sight of an Osprey that had just caught a fish for his kids.

Lunch in hand

Coming with the groceries!

We did a short side trip along the Firehole River.  There is a very popular swimming hole there in which you can swim and ride the rapids.  We never expected to find anyone in the water at this time of year, but you never know!  I guess if you plan your trip to Yellowstone to swim the river, then by God, you are going to swim the river.

That pretty much winds up this post.  Sorry it's so long, but a lot has been happening.  We are chilling today and will head back into the park before the crack of dawn tomorrow, our last day here.