Of course, we had to spend time in Yellowstone – 9 days this time. We drove from Lakepoint Utah through Idaho and Montana to get to Bridge Bay Campground. It has the best access to both Hayden Valley and Lamar Valley where the most animals can be sighted.
What can I say – it was a wonderful visit to the park. Very relaxed and a bit cold. Our campsite was not level and it took us over an hour to get Tut leveled, but we finally got him right. It snowed one night which was a bit of a shock. We did not have power and ended up using the generator quite a bit since we also had a shady site. But 9 days means you have plenty of time to go and see all the sights! We even went to the geysers which we normally skip.
Early June is baby season in Yellowstone! We saw grizzly and black bear cubs, red dogs, and even a couple elk calves. The Pronghorn were still very pregnant. Usually you don’t see the elk calves this early (they hideout) but those two were being led across the edge of the river and had to swim for it. We saw soooo many bison calves (red dogs); they were pretty much everywhere except Hayden Valley. Old males were hanging out there.
We went to the eastern entrance going to Cody one day and found younger male Bighorn right on the side of the road, scrambling up the rocks. There was some slipping and sliding so that was pretty fun. That same trip we came across frozen lakes, and so much snow in amongst the trees. And a marmot in a sunny pullout right on the side of the road.
We also saw 3 Osprey nests with a bird on them but could not tell if the chicks were out yet, except in one where it seemed as though the female was feeding someone in the nest.We also saw a bald eagle nest but again, too far away to see inside. Weirdly, most of the geese did not have goslings but a couple pairs did. No swans had cygnets and they were both on the water feeding. Same with the Sandhill Cranes we saw – no nesting behaviors so maybe it is just too early? Not sure what is going on there.
We had a couple young male elk in camp and a few we saw along the road. Females were pretty rare. No moose. We did see and interesting moment with a wolf and two coyotes- they chased the wolf off, and he was truly running all out. The male coyote came toward the wolf, yipping and calling out repeatedly. The wolf started edging away, the coyote really started almost screaming at it, and then here came the female at a dead run. The wolf took off full speed. They chased him across the road and over a hill on the other side. I’m assuming that they were protecting their den and had nothing to lose. I got some cool video of that. It was like a documentary moment!
What was truly fun (we never really come in the spring!) was the massive amounts of water in all the rivers and creeks, and the waterfalls! We hiked around the Grand Canyon a bit and stopped at Gibbons falls one day. Everywhere we hiked, we ran into wet ground.
Dave has close to a thousand pictures from this time so when he gets organized, I will add a button! It was a truly relaxing way to start our wind down from the trip! Cherie and Eric joined us and we did not see a single bear with them. Sad. We’ve never seen so many bears, especially with cubs. Tinies and year old cubs! Sigh….heaven!