A Day of Wildlife

We set off early on a day to be filled with wildlife viewing and the rest of our sites of Yellowstone. It did not disappoint! Shortly into our trip we came upon a wildlife traffic jam.....what were they looking at? We were skeptical since we had come up on quite a few and they had mostly been Elk and bison and not to be Yellowstone snobs but we had gotten to the point where these were pretty commonplace and not really worth stopping for. But this time we were pretty high in the mountains so this was likely something different. We pulled off at a turnoff and low and behold, they had been look at a grizzly with two of her cubs! But they had just run back into the woods. Darn! Then all of the sudden, they came back out and went down the hill and proceeded down the road. Everyone jumped back into their cars. We slowly made it up to where the bears were. So cool, they were slowly making their way down the road, eating dandelions as they went. I jumped out and got a lot of nice shots. I stayed on the opposite side of the road and close to our car but there were some crazies who got right in front of them! Insane! Then a dog barked, from a car next to me. The mother grizzly shot her head up to look and I jumped back in the car! You could tell it was a little dog too. :) But she must have known too because she went back to her feast of dandelions.

From there we went to Mammoth to see the mammoth thermal features which were also so cool! We had some huckleberry ice cream too! Yum! Wish we had that in VA.

Next on the agenda was a drive through the Lamar Valley around dusk for wildlife viewing. I was hoping to see a pack of wolves as this was the best place to find them. We drove along and saw a couple of spots where people were set up with their spotting scopes, they were looking for the wolves too. You would think that we could have picked one of those spots where they were on level ground, but instead we waited and decided on one where they were up on top of a big hill that didn't necessarily have a trail up to it! And of course, I am on vacation so I only brought my flip flops! But we went up to join the crowd. Off in the distance there was a herd of bison, a grizzly which we could see with the binoculars, and they had found a couple of wolves but I never did see them, they were just into the edge of the woods pacing back and forth. I wonder if they were stalking the bison??? That would have just been too awesome to see them take one down! Someone the day before told us that they had seen a grizzly take a bison down!

Well, you know we couldn't stay out of trouble there! While I was searching the fields with the binoculars, I heard some guy come up to Matt and ask him where he was headed. Oh no, a hitchhiker! And he was headed almost back to where we were going which was easily more than an hour back. This guy was maybe in his early 20s and he had climbed this massive hill with his backpack to look for a ride! Now, I have no problem with giving a guy a ride, but there was something not right with this one. But the deal was set and we set off back down the hill with no trail. And despite my best efforts, I landed on my butt! It was VERY slippery!! But other than a few bruises on my butt and one on my arm from getting slammed by my camera, I was fine. :)

When we got down to the car we were trying to make enough room in the car for Bradley and his stuff. I was trying to talk to him to assess his "deal" when I heard some come up behind us and say, "Are you Bradley?". I turned around to see two Park Rangers standing there. My first thought was "Oh good!" Which quickly turned to the thought of "Who was this guy anyway that the rangers were out looking for him!!!!"?

We never got the full story but it seems that Bradley was working at Lake Lodge preparing food for workers there and why he was backpacking there, I don't know, but he apparently had been with a group of people who didn't really know him and he had decided to just take off on his own. There must have been enough concern to send rangers looking for him. At that point, I didn't care because he wasn't our problem anymore. He decided to go with the Rangers!

So, by the end of the day we had seen 2 Black bears, 4 Grizzlies, a coyote, a gray fox, a jack rabbit, lots of pronghorn, and lots more bison (including as herd crossing the road in front of us!)