A Journal, with Pictures

Thurs­day morn­ing we meet our Yel­low­stone Safari guide, Vick­ie Backus at 7:30 AM. Vick­ie turns out to be very bright, PHD, and delight­ful and will make our trip a com­plete suc­cess. We head south toward the north entrance to Yel­low­stone and start see­ing wild life and beau­ti­ful scenery even before we get to the park. We see elk at the entrance to the park, bison, prong­horn, and a griz­zly all before our first pic­nic lunch on the Yel­low­stone Riv­er. We trav­el through the beau­ti­ful Lamar val­ley look­ing for wolves, black bear and moose arriv­ing at the town of Sil­ver Gate the north­east entrance to the park where we spend the night. We stay in a log cab­in which is com­fort­able and have our best din­ner in the park, fresh trout, at the local cafe.

Day two, Thurs­day we are up ear­ly look­ing for moose and wolves. The elu­sive moose is no where to be seen, how­ev­er we hit the jack pot and join a large group observ­ing three wolves of the Butte Junc­tion pack eat­ing a elk that they have killed. The wolves are three miles away and we observe and pho­to­graph through spot­ting scopes. After see­ing the wolves we see a num­ber of ani­mals in the val­ley includ­ing a very beau­ti­ful coy­ote loung­ing in the morn­ing sun. We then head for Mam­moth hot springs to see our first geot­her­mal activ­i­ty in Yel­low­stone. On our way we see anoth­er griz­zly bear sleep­ing on a bison car­cass at Swan Lake. After pic­nic lunch by a nat­ur­al springs, we head for Yel­low­stone lake where we will spend the night. On the way through the Hay­den Val­ley we see bison swim­ming the Yel­low­stone riv­er. We spend he night at the Lake Lodge over look­ing Lake Yellowstone.