We met our guide Steve early in the am in Gardiner. We had driven up the evening before and had a great Italian dinner in Livingston on the way. Naturally every trip to Yellowstone you will see buffalo, but in the spring you get to see the young calves too:
Some of them still had umbilical cords attached. We tooled around and saw some other critter, including a wolf visiting the scene of an earlier elk kill. Too bad it's tough to get a good pic of wolves because they are always so far off. Later our guide took us on a little hike, and we saw lots of critter (gophers, birds, antelope). The highlight was when an antelope ran off a coyote who we think was stalking an antelope fawn. The antelope kicked him!
There were lots of bones out there:
And we learned how to identify things like what animal they were from, if they were old, and so on. It was cool. He then took us to a grizzly bear den (not active) and I got to crawl inside and check it out. Far out!
We were on constant lookout as the area has lots of grizzly and other critter. There are also large boulders laying around, evidently dropped by glaciers back in the day. Marilyn by a big one with a coyote den under it:
In the evening after dinner we decided to go back in the park on our own and see some twilight critter. It was great. Almost right away, on the road from Mammoth to Lamar Valley, we passed a young black bear on the side of the road. The pic isn't great but the cool thing was we could hear it chewing:
A little further on after crossing the Yellowstone river we saw this bighorn sheep:
After crossing the Yellowstone but before getting to Lamar Valley, you come to an area they call 'Little America'. It is full of critters and is where we had gone on our hike earlier. The scenery is great, too. Slough Creek is over the hills and to the right, where I caught my huge 19" cutthroat trout last Sept:
When we entered the Lamar Valley the sunset was just getting started (at about 9pm). All those brown dots are buffalo (bison, same thing):
As we motored on to the end of the valley to Soda Butte Creek, where the wolves hang out, the colors became more intense:
We did see another wolf at Soda Butte creek (carrying the head of an elk fawn in its mouth!), but again it was a little too far for the camera.
The next morning we had decided to do another day on our own, so we got up early and went into the park again. We stopped at a spot where they wait for a great grey owl to appear every morning, but he never came. This cool coyote did come by, though. I dig coyotes, they are so cool:
On the way back to Lamar Valley I snapped this pic of the mighty Yellowstone River for my friend Ken to try to convince him to come on a backpack/fishing trip. Here it is about to enter the Black Canyon, looking upstream:
The area is crawling with critters, and giant cutthroat trout.
On the way back to Lamar Valley I snapped this pic of the mighty Yellowstone River for my friend Ken to try to convince him to come on a backpack/fishing trip. Here it is about to enter the Black Canyon, looking upstream:
The area is crawling with critters, and giant cutthroat trout.Here are more bison in Lamar Valley:
With the spotting scope I did manage to see 2 grizzlies on the mountain above them, but again way too far off for a picture.
With the spotting scope I did manage to see 2 grizzlies on the mountain above them, but again way too far off for a picture.We decided to drive back home the long, scenic way over the Beartooth Mtns. Here we are headed up Soda Butte creek to the northeast entrance of the park:
We stopped for a bit and I flyfished upper Soda Butte Creek, but no luck. Still too cold:
Up in the Beartooths we saw firsthand more evidence of the devastation of global warming, lakes along the road frozen in the middle of June:
It would get worse as we pressed on and it began to snow! Up at the top there is a sign signalling the actual "Bears Tooth", but you can't really see it in the snow and clouds:
Too late for ski season? Not to fear my globally-warmed friends. In late June you can still carve some snowboard turns in the Beartooths. Some happy looking dudes with their boards were eyeing this spot from the turnout where we took this pic:
There was actually a crowd of skiers and boarders lined up to drop into this sketchy-looking bowl. Someone helpfully sprayed down some nice red guidelines to keep the uninitiated from going off the rocks. "Stay outside the lines!!!!!":
Eventually we crossed over and made our way down into the Rock Creek valley: 
We drove into Red Lodge and went to the Candy Emporium and got some of their great steak marinade. After more scenic driving we passed by the delightfully named Crazy Mountains near Big Timber (great golf course there, by the way):
And then we arrived home! All in all it was a great trip and we saw lots of critters and learned all sorts of things about how to find them and identify them.
We stopped for a bit and I flyfished upper Soda Butte Creek, but no luck. Still too cold:
Up in the Beartooths we saw firsthand more evidence of the devastation of global warming, lakes along the road frozen in the middle of June:
It would get worse as we pressed on and it began to snow! Up at the top there is a sign signalling the actual "Bears Tooth", but you can't really see it in the snow and clouds:
Too late for ski season? Not to fear my globally-warmed friends. In late June you can still carve some snowboard turns in the Beartooths. Some happy looking dudes with their boards were eyeing this spot from the turnout where we took this pic:
There was actually a crowd of skiers and boarders lined up to drop into this sketchy-looking bowl. Someone helpfully sprayed down some nice red guidelines to keep the uninitiated from going off the rocks. "Stay outside the lines!!!!!":
Eventually we crossed over and made our way down into the Rock Creek valley: 
We drove into Red Lodge and went to the Candy Emporium and got some of their great steak marinade. After more scenic driving we passed by the delightfully named Crazy Mountains near Big Timber (great golf course there, by the way):
And then we arrived home! All in all it was a great trip and we saw lots of critters and learned all sorts of things about how to find them and identify them.
