It's About the (RV) Journey....: Wild Side of Yellowstone......

To see some of the wildlife in Yellowstone, we got up and out very early one day, and brought along Tom's spotting scope, that he actually had for sky-watching. We had planned on sitting still in one place, and just scanning the meadows in Hayden Valley-about an hour away. The drive through the park was very peaceful, with the sun just starting to come up behind the mountains. And you gotta love this mountain air....its nice and cool in the early mornings and evenings, and rather pleasant during the day. As we drove by the bear/carcass we saw yesterday...guess what? The same bear was still there! We stopped for just a bit before moving on.

the display in our car: 42 degrees at 5:35 am

the sun just coming up now

sun behind the mountains....almost up

Good morning elk family

look at the cute little guy in the middle

early morning light on some hydrothermal features

the bear is still on the bison carcass!!

Wow! I can't believe he ate the whole thing!

nothing is left!

Not too much farther down the road, the few of us that were out and about were pleasantly rewarded with this sight! A grizzly and a cub, cruising through the meadow not too far from the road. They were snacking their way through the meadow. The young one was very alert, and stayed with its mom most of the time we were watching. After a while, they just ran through the meadow. We were so thrilled to have seen that! We even said it probably wouldn't get any better than that. Wildlife spotting in Hayden Valley was still our plan of the day, and it was still about half hour away. So, we continued on. (So many pictures to choose from, and I couldn't decide....so there you go!)

The drive to the valley was so pretty in the early morning light. Fog was lifting off the Yellowstone River, and it was so peaceful. I kinda like the early mornings here in the park!

elk

Yellowstone River

Yellowstone River again

hot springs in the distance

As we drove into the valley, we saw some spotters, and they had eyes on a wolf. We were able to see it clearly as it walked through the meadow and river. Again, we were thrilled!! A wolf! We aren't the only ones that think its thrilling to see such beautiful animals in the wild. Some of these folks have pretty heavy duty equipment! I am a bit envious of some of the cameras!! Hahaha.

enlarge the photo to see a whitish wolf in the middle of the picture

Wolf in middle of picture

wolf down by the water

Wouldn't ya just love to have that camera?

Enlarge-wolf in center of picture by the water

great hill for watching the wolves

what an amazing morning!!

are we dreaming this?

To our utter amazement, we spent the next hour or so watching a wolf pack!! Pinch me! The wolves are such beautiful animals. Some of the veteran spotters were clue-ing us in on which was the alpha male and female-there were 5 wolves we were able to watch! The wolf pack was on one side of the meadow, and all of the wolves were trying to get across to the other side of the street near the water, where we heard there was a carcass of some sort. Elk I think. You can't really tell from the pictures, but it was so amazing to watch through the binoculars and spotting scopes. At one point, 3 of the wolves were together in the middle of the field and they were howling! We could see and hear it and it was awesome! They just sat there howling!

Enlarge pic-3 wolves in center of field

blown up view of 3 wolves

One wolf made it across the street....but once it went over the hill, he was out of sight. The theory (from the other spotters) was that he was headed to the carcass.

Enlarge-wolf in middle of pic-trying to cross street

there he goes - across the street to the other field

see him on the hill (enlarge)

There were several different good locations for watching this wolf pack, and we moved a couple of times ourselves. Up on the hill, we were able to look down and get a good view of 4 wolves trying to make their way to cross the road. Unfortunately, a loud car stopped right in the area where the wolves were eyeing to cross, and a small traffic jam developed. That was it for the wolves. They retreated back closer to the woods, and were planning a different route. It was amazing though, they all stuck together-except for the first one that made it across the street. Maybe he was the scout? Anyway, looking through the spotting scope, you can get a really good view of these animals, and they were really beautiful! You just can't tell from my pictures...we are too far away.

views from this hill were terrific

random.....heron

4 wolves in this pic-from left to right, black, white, brown, black and the other black in the back is a bison (enlarge picture to see the 4 wolves!)

3 wolves-black, white and brown

closeup: black alpha male and white alpha female

Black and brown wolves

beautiful animals

heading to the road

alpha male...looking to cross the road

thinking.....

just beautiful....black wolf!

Black and white wolves

So, this is where we were headed early this morning....to the area of meadow with this sign up. We were just going to keep scanning the fields for a little bit, and test out Tom's spotting scope that he uses for star-gazing. And hopefully spot a grizzly! That never happened as we were too busy with the other bears and wolves. Wow! What a morning - is all I can say! We headed back "home" just so thrilled to have seen all those animals!!

On the drive back, we noticed tons of cars pouring into the park. The line was pretty long too, much longer than we have seen it previously. We are usually on the early side getting into the park though. What a difference a few hours make! Besides the traffic, the weather warmed up too! The car display clocked 71 degrees at 10:37 am. Big difference!!

nice view as we were driving out of the park (on a cloud!)

Busy morning coming into the park

check out the line

warmed up quite a bit!

is that a Jersey girl pumping gas?!?!

yes...I'm finally proficient at this!

All gassed up and ready for our next excursion. But for now, a little ~~nap~~ reading in the lounge chair outside at the campground for a bit sounds good!

So......we had such an amazing morning, we decided to go to the Fishing Bridge area of the park at dusk, to see if we could spot any moose. Well, wouldn't ya know, as we were driving through Hayden Valley to get there, we stopped to see two grizzlies that were coming out of the woods across the river. So many people had stopped, so we joined them. Turns out, there was a huge male grizzly that would come out of those woods and eat something there on the river bank, and then when he would go back into the woods a different smaller grizzly would come out and feed on the same thing. It is fascinating to watch with the binoculars, but we are really way too far away for pictures. We didn't hang around too long...we were on a mission to head to Fishing Bridge and wanted to be out of the park by dark.

Enlarge pic-brown spot in the middle on the upper river bank is a grizzly

Fishing Bridge area

Fishing Bridge....with Yellowstone Lake in the background

We had no luck spotting moose on our quick exploration of Fishing Bridge, but do plan on spending more time there next week. Heading back again through Hayden Valley, there were even more signs posted near the river and valley to warn of grizzly bear activity. Again, we joined a large group of wildlife enthusiasts, and we were told there was a bear in the woods on the hillside. He had dragged a large piece of carcass (that was behind the hill so we could not see it) into the woods to eat in peace by himself. Well, no sooner had we heard this when Tom spotted him coming out of the woods!! We all looked through our binoculars and scopes for a glimpse as the bear headed back to the carcass.

warning!

Grizzly coming out of the woods to feed on a carcass

Knowing that he could be out of view for quite a while, we moved on to another area where lots of spotters were hanging out. Turns out, you could see the carcass from that spot...way way in the distance. Tom set up his spotting scope, and we could clearly see the bear ripping into the carcass. Tom thought he saw another bear there, but no one else could see it. (He's sooooo good at spotting things!)

Tom setting up his spotting scope

a bunch of wildlife enthusiasts

need to attach a camera!! The view is unbelievable!

enlarge...spot the tall dead tree on the river bank, to the left of it is another dead tree laying down, to the left and back of that dead tree is a little brown spot-that is the bear/and carcass. You need binoculars or a spotting scope to see it. Don't know how people spot this stuff....but they do and then the crowd forms so we can all view this amazing stuff!

Turns out, YES, there was another grizzly there! Tom spotted him running up the hillside, and there was still a bear on the carcass. Bears in the wild...doing what they do. Its fascinating to be able to watch them from a very safe distance and not disturb them. It started getting late, so we packed up and left so we could be out of the park by dark.

the second grizzly-running up the hill! Tom spotted it for all of us!!

Heading closer to "home", we were about to turn the corner when look! Another grizzly! Too bad my pictures did not come out so well. The lighting was so awesome. And, can I just say right here, I had no idea there were so many grizzly bears in this particular area!! No hiking around here for me, thank you.