Sunday 6/26

An elk telling us all what he thinks of our picture taking, a photo by Olivia Linkel on Flickr.

We were up at 6 AM and headed over to the cafeteria for breakfast again. Luke is enjoying the French toast for breakfast. We were on the road from the Canyon Lodge towards the Roosevelt-Tower area. There were supposed to be abundant animals in this part of the park. It is also through the highest point in the park. There was lots of snow on the roadside but we didn’t see any animals until Luke spotted a herd of pronghorn antelope. We stopped at the next turnout and asked a couple in an RV if that was what they were watching and they said no, they were watching WOLVES!!! All of us got out of the car and we were very happy that we bought those high powered binoculars. Of course, I was wishing again that I had that $1200 camera lens. There was a white wolf with a limp and two other brown and gray wolves that we saw. There was also an elk following the wolves, almost as if it were trying to scare them off. There were also some bison on the hill. Lorelei swears she saw a 4th wolf, which is possible. We later learned that we likely saw the Canyon pack. We were there at least 20 minutes and we also got to see 2 sand hill cranes which are birds as big as Lorelei and Luke.
Once everyone had gotten their fill of the wolves, we continued on our drive. We turned east and headed out through the Lamar valley. Unfortunately the road is closed because it is partially underwater due to the high water levels so we were only able to go about 5 miles. However, at the spot where we turned around, there were some pronghorn sunning themselves and I was able to get some good pictures.
We turned back onto the Grand Loop road and headed toward Mammoth Hot Springs. We stopped in at the Petrified Tree and took some silly pictures where we were also petrified and then continued on. When you are in Yellowstone, you watch the turnouts very carefully to see if the people are looking into the woods or out on the meadows. There was a guy with a long range lens looking up the hill and we stopped to see what was going on. It was a black bear. Imagine how excited we were. We have now seen 4 grizzlies and a black bear. What a wonderful trip. I took some pictures before the park ranger ushered us on to keep from creating a bear jam. And then…
We went not 5 minutes up the road and there was a bear right by the roadside, foraging in the grass. He was literally 5 feet out our window. I got some ok shots and then we had to move on. And then, maybe 10 more minutes up the road we saw some folks getting out of their car and up in the woods there was a third black bear. It was the most exciting morning ever!!! I am so thankful that we like to get moving early in the day. Mornings are always my favorite time in the national parks because there are less people and the wildlife is stirring.
We finally made it into the Mammoth area and stopped at the visitor center to use the bathrooms and have a look around. Next, we headed out the north entrance to Gardiner. We had three things to do. 1) Pick up some groceries. 2) Take our picture in front of the historic Roosevelt Arch that marks the entrance to Yellowstone. 3) Spot some big horn sheep. Pam has been to Yellowstone several times and has never seen the bighorns. Unfortunately, for this trip they will continue to remain elusive. However, we have seen bear and wolves today so I don’t think any of us are disappointed.
We drove back into the Mammoth area to stop at the hotel gift shop to pick up our free souvenir for the kids. The hotels all have a deal where you get stickers in an activity book and if you get 4 of the 5, you get a free prize which happens to be a stuffed moose. The kids were all very happy with those and we moved on to the travertine terraces of the Mammoth Hot Springs. These formations are really cool and we had a nice walk on the boardwalk. We also saw a mule deer in the trees in this area.
By this time we were getting hungry so we stopped to picnic at the Sheepeater Cliff picnic area but again, no sheep. Next we stopped into the National Museum of the Park Ranger in the Norris area. We explored the exhibits and Pam and Riley got to sit on the front porch and watched the bison grazing and crossing the road. We went over to the Norris area and started to go out to the geyser field but then, as Luke put it, “if you have seen one, you have seen them all and what’s the difference?” We were all kind of feeling the same way so we decided to skip Norris and head back over to Canyon to hike to the overlooks.
Pam and Riley decided to skip Uncle Tom’s trail that is a descent of about 500 feet or ¾ of the way in to the canyon to view the Lower Falls, a 308 foot waterfall. The trail was originally constructed of 500+ steps and rope ladders but today it is made of 328 steel steps (one way). Initially Luke did not want to go but we made him and in the end he said it was worth it. It was a great view of the falls and on the way up, as we turned around to view the mist, the sun was hitting at just the right angle and there was a rainbow in the spray. We have done a few of these sorts of climbs; 308 steps at the lighthouse on Point Reyes in California, 354 in the Statue of Liberty but this climb at an elevation of about 8000 feet left us very winded. I will probably be feeling that one tomorrow. I wore my flip flops all day yesterday and up until this hike today and my shoes didn’t hurt my feet at all which is good because we are planning to hike tomorrow too.
We had a view of the upper falls, which is a 109 foot drop, from the parking lot and then we headed down the road to the parking area for the short walk to Artists Point which has a canyon rim view of the lower falls. This is the view of the canyon that was made famous by Thomas Moran in the 1871 expedition to survey Yellowstone. His famous painting is on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC and was one of the factors that convinced Ulysses Grant to make Yellowstone our first national park. It was a beautiful view and the canyon edges are simply gorgeous with all kinds of colors.
As we were leaving Artists Points, we were lucky to catch some pictures of a male elk that had been lying in the grass high above the parking area the whole time we were there. He had moved to within 5 feet of the road and there was a line of cars waiting to take his picture as he lay in the grass, yawning and occasionally nibbling the grass in front of him. He was massive and lovely and an elk with antlers was one of the things I wanted to see on this trip.
We drove over to the brink of the upper falls for one more overlook before we headed back to the Canyon Lodge dining room for dinner. It was an early evening for the kids because they were all showered and in their pajamas by 7:30 and we let them watch a movie on Scott’s iPad. There are no TV’s in the hotel rooms in Yellostone in case you are wondering. It was another great day and the rain we expected, never came. The weather is supposed to be nice again tomorrow and we have tickets on the Yellowstone Lake cruise and dinner reservations on the wagon cookout. Plus we are hiking part of the fairy falls trail to see the high view of the Grand Prismatic Spring. Hopefully we will see more animals in the morning too. It will be our last full day and I hope to make the most of it.