Round Prairie was particularly picturesque on the way in:
As was the Lamar Valley:
The Lamar had the usual bison herds and we did spot some Elk hanging out near the YS Picnic Area. We stopped to hear the bugling which is another of Yellowstone's sounds that I don't grow tired of.
After yesterday, the animals seemed to be playing hard to get today. We grabbed some sandwiches at the Subway in Gardner (gas and food at the same place is nice) and headed back to Slough Creek where we ate and enjoyed views of the area.
As we left Slough Creek to go to Lamar, there was a large jam. A grizzly had decided to hang out in one of the meadows across from the Slough Creek road. So, we got out and watched him for a while. Unfortunately, it got really crowded and people headed down the hill too close to the bear. Turned off by the stupid humans, we left.
In the Lamar, we saw another grizzly that we watched for a while. He was walking parallel to the river and my wife was hoping to see him cross. We headed down towards the institute and set up the scope. Turns out, he did cross the river and we were able to see him wade through the water which was kind of cool. We also ran into some close Pronghorn in the Lamar.
The weather let up so we decided to check to see if any otters were at Trout Lake. I had my doubts but wanted to try anyway. Before we got there we saw a lone car pulled over and a guy with a BIG lens (600mm probably) taking pictures of something close by. Turns out it was a coyote who was digging. I thought about stopping but we had seen a lot of coyotes and if we stopped we may have scared off the coyote. I didn't want to be responsible for interrupting a photo session so we pressed on.
We made the Trout Lake hike in slight rain. It was very pretty up there as you can see:
Soon the calm and silence was disrupted by a large family that hiked up. So, we decided to try to find Buck Lake. There were many trails leading off in the right general direction and I wasn't really sure which one to take so after reaching a rise and not seeing the lake we decided to turn back. I will be more prepared for the exact location of the lake next time. Anyone know the right trail to take?
Next we decided to head to Tower. We passed the grizzly across from Slough Creek who was still causing a large jam. At Tower, the Bighorn were out foraging in a meadow but no bears were around at all. We stopped at the "osprey" pullout for this shot:
It was getting late now so we headed back home through the Lamar Valley. Just as we passed the institute was saw a huge herd of something in the valley. The rain was coming down a little bit now so we stopped to take a look. It turned out to be a HUGE herd of elk. We are talking at least 500! This was incredible because I had no idea that the Elk in YNP did this. I assumed this was the beginning of their migration to the elk refuge near Jackson. Could this be correct? Here is a pano stitched together to try to show the size of the herd. Even this picture doesn't do the scene justice since many of the elk were behind a little hill. (Forgive the poor post processing. That is what happens when you stitch together shots taken at different settings):
What was really interesting is that the bulls hung out at the rear of the herd. I assume this was to keep them moving:
And this herd was moving pretty quickly down the valley. Between the plethora of bugling, the dimming light, and the dampening rain, this sight was truly surreal. It was a great way to end our last full day in the park because we never expected to see something like this.
Today's tally: 500+ elk, 12 Bighorn Sheep, 2 Bears, 1 coyote, some hawks and of course Bison, mulies and pronghorn. So far we have seen bears and coyotes every day which we think was pretty darn good.
Tomorrow we head back home but we do need to drive through the park to get to Bozeman. Boy, was that an interesting drive. So, I have named tomorrow's post "Snow Day".
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