Stories

(Scroll down for a basic daily plan)

Welcome to Yellowstone!
We had a great start to our lovely Sabbath morning on which we ALWAYS receive a special sighting. Dawning the North entrance at 2:40 AM, we saw an elk and deer to the background of lightening. The storm moved east about twice as fast as we were traveling. One lightening flash too many prompted us to call in the lightening fire near Upper Hellroaring Overlook. We caught two grizzlies on the Aspen bison carcass and moved a big rock from the road in Lamar Canyon (yes, we stopped in the work zone but thought we'd be forgiven since we were "working"). We greeted another grizzly pair at fisherman's pullout. They stood up, one on each side of the road, crossed, and were then pursued by two persistent coyotes. Two more grizzlies, one black, one brown, graced us with an all out relay running up toward Amethyst bench. Our four fox kits greeted mom-with-mice near the northeast gate. One wanted to get in the car with us - nope, not OK. A Warbling Vireo (new to us) discretely sang in the tree tops, and we chanced by the other mama fox we'd frequently seen at Baronet. There were no grizzlies on Norris Finger #2, but we saw four wolves skirting the top of Lamar River at middle foothills. Almost the entire pack was seen on the ridge, but we opted for breakfast with invading early-rutting bison at Picnic Pullout over a wolf traffic jam. All this before 8:30 AM. This is Yellowstone! 

A Wolf Growl?
We had just set up for a few seconds for some astro-photograhy, two of us under a starry night sky with no moon and not a light to be seen. Our shutters were set at 35 seconds to capture Yellowstone's astronomical grandeur when not ten feet distant, around a corner of the neighboring car, comes a clear and deeply menacing growl. We instantly knew it was not ursus (bear), not feline, but clearly canid. Taking no more than a split second to recognize our situation, doors flew open and slammed as quickly, wasting no time. It's one thing to be a tourist watching wolves from a distance, but it's quite another when they are watching you. Though I have no memorial photo, that sound "picture" is forever etched in my mind, an unimaginable encounter with a wolf that will never move beyond surreal. What an experience! Yellowstone is sometimes simply unspeakable.

Bear For Breakfast - ​
We had an up close and personal bear experience last fall (2022) but it hardly felt like 'a close call."  The black bears had "been away" for the summer but were just beginning to come out into the open for berries. On this particular day we saw a quick glimpse of a couple blacks south of Mammoth but still felt significant black bear withdrawal symptoms. Being past our usual breakfast time, we ventured into Rainy Lake South pullout teasing that we would "just let the bears come to us."  Out came our table and two lawn chairs as we ignored George Bumann's "step quietly into your world" suggestion (this was pre-class). As I went back for our food, I glanced up to the left for a once-in-a-lifetime, National Geographic view of a gorgeous black bear's face wreathed in dense green foliage - not forty feet away! He was apparently quite enthralled with our activity, be it wondering about the occasion or awaiting the menu, I don't know. A quick dive into the van with a call for Dan to join me, and the bear's pleasantly curious gaze was broken. He wandered across the road where our pleasantly curious gaze fixated on his breakfast routine. Had we no refuge, no van to hop in, we'd have been thinking fast - even though we felt no threat. What a fantastic experience that I will never forget, not because I've never been close to a black bear but because of his interest in us, his engagement in our moment. It was quite a "moment" indeed.  
 
Another 2022 Bear Story - 
Dan and I were hiking Warm Creek (Upper Pebble Creek) trail when the horse trail-ride just ahead of us returned shortly with an injured wrangler who had been thrown from her horse. Being told no details, we surmised we ought to pay particular attention in the area of the accident. We tuned up our tracking skills in hopes of recognizing that site, though without success, when Dan stopped suddenly. "Hush," says he, "I heard something." I still don't understand how one can hear quiet noises over our own footsteps but thankfully Dan can and does. We listened and watched for some time but hearing nothing more, we continued on, this time with both of our bear sprays in hand. Just around the next corner we came upon our "guest's" calling card, a huge pile of extremely fresh grizzly scat. This guy moved in and out of our area, within sixty feet, leaving only the hints of his presence that he chose to reveal. We acknowledged his superiority and his grace, a gift neither of us take for granted. 

Howling Wolves- 
What a sighting! We live here, we spend a lot of time in the park, we've seen spectacular grizzly and wolf sightings, including grizzlies interacting with wolves, but this twenty-minute experience might, I say "might," just top them all. We were on our way home during our final drive this year (2023) of the Grand Loop from West Yellowstone to Hayden Valley to Lake Butte Overlook, and while heading back to Gardiner and enjoying blue skies, fluffy snow sage mounds, flocked trees, and . . . a WOLF? A wolf just crossed the road in front of us. Cool, a single black wolf. We hit the next pullout, watching to the south when a gray trotted onto the scene. Another black appeared, and the howling began. We were right in the center of this vocal canine ring, howling coming from the north, responses from the northeast that were echoed by those we watched to the south. And each reverberation prompted another chorus as more and more wolves appeared from nowhere clearly jubilant at finding one another. Eventually the howlers moved away and again silence amidst snow drifts and the beauty of Yellowstone pervaded. Many cars drove by, but we shared this with just one other car of tourists. It was just soooo cool!

An Exciting Bear Chase-
In June, 2021, we were up before dawn to move camp from Madison to Pebble Creek. After rounding a bend in the dark, misty pre-dawn hours with a big, beautiful bull elk stately sharing our lane, we happened upon an even more exciting in-process just as we dropped below Mammoth Terraces. We knew something was up when a herd of cow elk were running down the road, not a common scene, and then Dan saw her. We assume it was a female, as it wasn't the largest grizzly we've seen, but she was fast. In most of the video (see link below) the bear is loping at various speeds, but she poured on the real steam just as she started up the west parking lot hill. Sadly, our door post was in the way of that piece, but let me just say that suddenly the dirt was flying. We were in complete awe as we realized her all-out speed capability. She was able to secure breakfast right in Mammoth with a calf that jumped out of hiding into her claws (not shown) and another one later in the bushes (discretely shown). After ten minutes, there was not a shred of meat left on the first calf's skeleton, a simple fast food snack - another profound understanding of this powerful species. We choose to remember this in its uplifting excitement and leave the results of it in distant memory - another day of survival in the "vast wilderness" of Yellowstone called Mammoth. Click here to view video https://youtu.be/rs0axACKumo

We have sooooo many more stories, so I'll write them here as I have time. 

 A Typical Day In Yellowstone - A Basic Plan

We like to get up early at least once or twice a week to be out in the wolf area of the park by sunrise (we don’t just look at wolves, tho). “Early” depends on where we stay. It might be up at 5 AM. Sometimes it’s been 3 AM, but it all depends on what we want to see, but following is a typical day:
 
Up about 7 or 7:30 AM, we do a quick "spit" bath (I have a wet-one recipe that works fantastic), dress, wash our faces, brush our teeth, and immediately head out to find some wildlife at a park pull out. We then cook breakfast (no point in nothing to see while cooking and eating). Our menu is most often cereal or instant oats, but we occasionally cook pancakes, vegetarian bacon, and more rarely, hash browns. We compliment that with canned fruit or a homemade fruit sauce as pancake topper – if I plan ahead.
 
We enjoy our small, portable but comfortable lawn chairs during our alfresco wildlife sighting. 
 
After breakfast, we hunt wildlife and view the sights stopping often to stretch our legs, and if we are in the mood, we will walk or hike somewhere like to Tower Fall or Storm Point. Sometimes we just sit by the car and "glass" for the harder-to-find wildlife while frequently checking our back trail. 
 
Restrooms are available about every seven miles in the park with some exceptions. Most are outhouses (pit toilets), but we’ve figured out the best of the best, as well as all the flush toilet locations.
 
We lunch at a pullout, usually over big valleys to see a broad range of animals and scenery. We enjoy simple sandwiches (cheese, veggie meat, pb&j, or egg salad), fruit, snack foods, chips, salsa, easy things to take along – and the occasional ice cream cone that jumps in the car at certain various locales. If at a fantastic sighting of wolves or bears, we will sometimes just open a couple cans of green beans and eat them cold out of the can with whatever we have to add. One may not be able to take time out for something as frivolous as food ;-).  We have learned that Yellowstone is NOT about food. It's simply too far to go back to camp for food, and since evening and morning are the best wildlife times, we are out too early and too late to cook for the next day. If we want something like potato salad, we don't cook it. We buy that before we come to the park. More about food on this page.
 
Mid-afternoon is usually pretty quiet animal-wise, so we drive to see new landscapes, “hike,” see thermal features, sit and relax or even nap at an overlook. We may go back to camp if we are close by. Of course, we are blessed to have a lot of time here. If we were simply vacationing, we'd be on a roll. 
 
Supper is about when the animals come back out, so our food is the same as lunch maybe with a little variation. Of course, all food plans depend on the weather (cold or hot) and animal activity. Sometimes we “skip” supper and just grab snacks if the animal activity is over the top (gotta get it while we can), so we make sure our snack buckets are filled with heartier items. We'll eat something “real” after it quiets down, usually a sandwich on the way back to camp. 
 
As mentioned, evenings can be the best animal viewing times. Often the park visitors clear out about supper time and we have it “to ourselves,” (shhh, don't tell anyone). We have even had a time or two when no one drove by us in Lamar Valley for 20 minutes. So, our evenings are almost always spent animal-hunting either just driving in the van or sitting in areas we know they frequent. We hunt them on our way back to camp but rarely see much after it really gets dark. Where we prefer to be  in camp by dark, if the wildlife in the Valley is profound, we may not start heading back until after sunset and just before dark thereby putting us "home" as late at 10:00 PM. We usually sleep in the next day (like 8:30 ;-).
 
We are gone long hours at times, but the day usually involves a fair bit of down-time – unless we do what I call our “busy days,” which means geysers, thermal features, and canyon tours. 

We really never stay at camp for a day, but we could. We don’t sit around a fire unless it’s our instant propane fireplace. Wood is too expensive, and the time it takes to start it and put out takes time away from the park. We highly recommend a propane fire pit. 
 
Our usual routine involves alternating first a busy day and then a down day, but all days are usually out in the park at least part of the time. Typically, we have a list of things we want to do and each evening prior we consider that list, define our energy level, check the weather, and consider the known animal sightings before making the next day’s plan, shifting things around, or punting until later in the week.

Can't wait for tomorrow!