2nd day in Yellowstone

9/11/2008 Yellowstone Day 2

We continue our stay at Yellowstone RV in Gardiner, MT. But, after getting a reservation at another site, we have decided to leave this campsite for one inside of Yellowstone at the Fishing Bridge, about half way through Yellowstone. We will leave tomorrow morning for the other site canceling the next days stay here.

It is a sunny day with only a few clouds in the sky and today we head around the upper loop, this time going clockwise. We want to make sure we see the sights we missed in the dark yesterday. (Carmen: Oh, Bob forgot to mention the speed limit is 35 miles per hour or 25 miles per hour for the many "S" curves.) We start again at Mammoth Hot Springs and before we begin our clockwise trek, we come across the same elk from yesterday. The bull elk is there and we get a good picture of it. Closer then yesterdays picture. I'm including him in this post. Check out the grass on his horns, he has been gouging the ground with his antlers.

Oh, have I mentioned the waterfalls? There are many waterfalls, some you have to hike a little way to, but they are all worth it. I am including one of the several waterfalls we see today. This one is named Wraith Falls. I liked the name so I'm including this one. (Notice I have been playing with the exposure of the pictures for the falls. Taking longer exposures to create the velvety look of the water. Hope it works.) We have also seen Tower Falls and also Upper Falls and Lower Falls (which includes the area that is known as the grand canyon of Yellowstone).

We continue around the loop road and see a person with a spotting scope and decide to turn into the turnout to see what he is looking at. After parking, we see that he has radio equipment and and an antenna. He is actually tracking a wolf pack. Exciting, since he says that the pack is in the hills before us. Not exactly sure where but according to the radio colors he is tracking, they are there. We wait about 10 minutes, but do not see any wolves, to bad, we did want to see some wolves.

While traveling around, we go by some people looking into a field and a small woods area. So we stop (some distance away) and I get out and go back to see what they are looking at and find out that there is a bear in the woods. A black bear, but bear in any case. The patch of woods is small with clearing all around. I am on the road and can not see the bear so I go around the woods up a trail where other people are to see if I can see it to get a picture. Nope, not from here either. Carmen is not with me, she is in the car about 300 yards down the road, so I start back. She drives back and meets me part of the way and after I tell her it is a bear, goes and parks in the parking lot for the hiking trail. She comes out in the road and we watch for maybe another 15 minutes but still no bear. Carmen goes back to get the car and while she is gone the bear makes a very brief appearance and disappears again. I get the briefest of pictures of it from the side and back, but we are tired of the shy bear and leave. The picture is not very good, but you can just see the bear, it is the black area (in the center of the picture) in the shadows of the trees.

We see a small herd of bison and they are quite some distance away. So of course I have to hike in, about 500 yards up a little hill to get a better view. I get some pictures, but they are still some distance away. But, the chance to see the herd up close is still fantastic.

It is getting late around 6:15 PM and come across two ladies watching the woods. We stopped and ask what they were watching and they tell us of some elk and they (and we also) can hear an elk bugle. They are moving to the right and there is a field along that way so we drive to a turn-off along the road.

Sure enough the elk comes out. We watched a massive bull elk with about 12 doe and four calves come out of the woods and proceed along a field paralleling the road. He was quite a site has about 10 points on about a four foot wide rack. They were quite far away from the road, so I had to go into the field to get a better shot. Several times the bull elk turned to watch me. He was being very protective of his "harem". He was also herding them in the direction he wanted them to go. It looked as though the head doe was leading and the bull elk was keeping the stragglers on the move. In the same field are two bison. I'm trying to take pictures of both while making sure neither them or I get any closer then we need to be.

The bull elk would bugle every so often and on one occasion he received an answer from another male elk. That one comes out of the woods in about the same place the big bull elk had come out 15 or so minutes earlier. They called back and forth and then the big bull started to back track to protect his turf. I though we were going to have a throw down, but not so. The other male elk was not as big, with only about eight points. He and his two doe leave the area heading in another direction without incident. To bad, those would have been good pictures. Instead, a little later two doe we have been watching, start to fight. Both are up on their hind legs flaying at each other. This is great! Got that picture, so I have to show it to you.

Did I mention there are bison around here. We have seen a number of bison and there are two where we are watching the elk herd. I get a real close picture of one of them, as he continues to walk in my direction. Here he is.

See you in the next post.