Yellowstone and the Tetons

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johnhens
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Yellowstone and the Tetons

Post by johnhens »

A few weeks ago we went to Yellowstone and The Grand Tetons National Parks, our 2nd trip, my 3rd trip there. For those who love to watch wildlife, Yellowstone is unmatched IMHO, for wildlife opportunities. The previous trip was a kind of “get to the know the lay of the land trip”. This trip, we headed directly to the Lamar Valley, probably one of the best places anywhere to watch wolves. I have seen wolves on IR once, a pair feeding on a moose carcass that had probably died of natural causes near the Belle Isle campground.

We set up camp at Slough Creek CG in the Lamar Valley. It is small, quiet and off the main road about 2 ½ miles. There is also good fly fishing there (though not this year). Generally, we have the same plan. We make a thermos of coffee the night before, get up the next AM before light and get out to view the active wildlife. While watching, we have hot coffee and a bagle or the like as it is usually cold in the AM. This trip we had snow 2x, once in Yellowstone and once in the Tetons. There are numerous pulloffs along the road and it is easy to find where the animals are being seen. Once a carcass is found, we will return to view either bears (black and griz) or wolves feeding on the carcass.

There are 2 events from this trip I would like to share.
The first AM in the Lamar, we had located a buffalo carcass the previous evening, where we watched 4 coyotes feed. The next AM, we returned hoping to see either wolves or a griz show up. Sure enough, we saw a griz making its way along the river, its nose held high as it followed the odor of meat. There were a few coyotes hanging around at the time. The carcass was located along the river bank below a rock ledge. I wondered what the coyote would do when the griz showed up. The bear circled around and approached the carcass area. It was cool to watch as he moved his head from side to side seemingly trying to follow the strongest scent direction. The look on the coyote was a classic “ I was just sitting here enjoying my breakfast and now my day is going South quickly” It quickly moved away as the griz took possession of the kill. I was amazed at the strength of the griz as it lifted the carcass with little effort and dragged it away from the shore. It fed on the kill for about 20 minutes and grabbed a piece and headed towards a line of trees and a small rise. The bear moved away at a gentle lope. Surprisingly, one of the coyotes followed.
The way the bear was moving, I half expected either a larger bear or wolves to show up. We stayed for a while, but nothing happened. The bear fed for a while and moved into the trees for a nap. We are viewing this through binoculars and a spotting scope.

The morning we were leaving Yellowstone for the Tetons, we stopped at a site we had been watching a pack of wolves while there. There was the Alpha female and male, his brother the beta, and 4 pups of the year. They were know as the Lamar-Canyon pack. In talking to regular wolf watchers, we had learned the female uncharacteristically hunts by herself. And does so quite successfully. We did not see any of the pack , so we moved on to an elk kill she had made. While there, we watched a few minutes when a cow elk came bursting out of the woods, seemingly from nowhere, with the female wolf hot on her trail. The elk went into the river followed by the wolf. The elk would cross easily to one side followed by the wolf, that struggled in the current. This went on for about 45 minutes. A good part of the time, the elk was calling in distress. There was a part of me that expected other elk to show up to aid her. The wolf lunged for the elk and the elk reared up with its hind hooves and made contact with the wolves right rear leg and ,I think, made contact with the wolves head. Not much longer, the chase came to a halt. The wolf went to a previous elk kill no more than 50 yards upstream and began to feed in a relaxed manner, as if the other elk was a done deal. Meanwhile the elk stood in the deeper part of the stream. The wolf then hobbled up the bank and curled up in the sage and seemed to take a nap. The elk slowly moved to leave the creek, looking up at the bank where the wolf was napping. As it left the water, we could see a large gash behind its left front leg, muscle easily seen. She also had a gash on the other side, though not as deep. It took her quite a while to exit the water. We spent almost 3 hours watching this unfold.

We moved on to the Tetons. We had better luck fishing there, where we caught numerous rainbow trout, a few lake trout and whitefish. We were using ultralight gear. I hooked a lake trout that went about 5 lbs. It was probably one of the most enjoyable catches I have had!! We usually see good numbers of moose in the Tetons, we did not see any this time!!!
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Re: Yellowstone and the Tetons

Post by Kevinl »

It sounds like a great trip John. That Lamar Valley area really is something. Thanks for sharing.

You must have forgotten to post a link to pictures. :)
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Re: Yellowstone and the Tetons

Post by Backpacker534 »

What an awesome experience, John. I'd love to go there some day. I've seen a lot of pictures and heard a lot about the park, but those animal sightings must have been "icing on the cake"! I too, would love to see some photos of your trip. Thanks for sharing this, I had a good mental picture while reading it.
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