Yellowstone Trip

Meredith has been bugging me all day today to write a blog about our Yellowstone Trip this past weekend. I told her that I had to edit and go through all of the 746 pictures that I took this weekend and then I would post the blog. Yes, that's right 746 pictures! I did end up with a lot of good photo opportunities and well, lets just say that my 4 gigs of complact flash did not suffice. Thank goodness I brought my laptop and I was able to upload my pictures to it each night. Well I have not quite finished going through the pictures but I still wanted to write a blog today.

Well we left Provo after Meredith's ultrasound appointment on Thursday afternoon, we got into our hotel at 9 pm. That night Meredith and I decided that we would just relax and go out in the morning to find animals and enjoy the Northern part of park. On Friday morning I got up at 5:30 am. That's right 5:30 in the morning! Many of you might be thinking, "this is vacation right?" Let me just tell you that I am a nature freak and getting up at 5:30 in the morning to watch animals is ideal. Meredith of course stayed in bed until 9. That morning I found 3 wolves and watched them for an hour as they ate and played by an elk carcass. Of course I saw other animals but the wolves were the highlight of that morning. No good picture opps though. I then went back to Meredith and we enjoyed the day hiking and driving through Lamar Valley and the northern part of the park. We weren't able to hike as much as we wanted because there was about 4 feet of snow at any given part of the trails. In the evening we made sure that we were in Lamar Valley where we have had lots of luck seeing animals in the past. It was also where I saw the wolves that morning. We again were very lucky because we saw a Grizzly bear walking in front of our car. We watched it for a good 30 minutes as I took pictures like crazy from the car. At one point the bear went to the door of a bathroom that Meredith had used many times before. She said that she would freak if she opened the door from using the bathroom to face a grizzly bear. The bear then gave me lots of photo opportunities as it came towards our car closer and closer. It got to about 15 feet away when I decided it was time to back our car up. (We were safe the Ranger was right there with us as well!) We of course never left our car and would have had no problem closing our window if the bear were to come any closer. (Thats for anyone who thinks that Grizzlies are scary or were worried about us while gone, we also have bear pepper spray for when we hike!)

That ended Friday on a great note!

Saturday of course I woke up early again. Thank goodness because I saw two grizzlies courting! They were play fighting and enjoying each others company like two brothers would except it was a female and male. They were pretty far away but then came closer and I have many shots of them as well. Keep in mind that most people who go to Yellowstone never even see a bear or wolf. It was a good weekend!

That day Meredith and I had decided that we were going to go to Old Faithful and play down there. It was a slow day because there was more snow and we were not able to hike very much. We decided that the north loop is a much better place to see animals, however Sunday morning we found that we missed the most amazing thing by 45 minutes.

Sunday we planned on heading to Teton but were sidetracked by two bison carcasses we did not see the night before. As we stopped to see what was going on we talked to a lady who had been there the night before. She said that at 8 pm her and her friends saw three wolves take the two bison out. If we had only been there 45 minutes later driving by we would have seen the wolves take them down. It made me angry but it was my fault as I was the one that suggested we go back to Lamar for the evening. Anyway, these carcasses were so close to the road that the rangers decided that they had to move them. We waited hoping that we would see a bear or something eat the carcasses. We did see two coyotes try but could not eat because the carcasses werent opened up enough for them to get in. The rangers then arrived and took them off.

We then drove home to Provo and arrived at 6:30 pm. I have attached a link to my flickr account with some pictures that I took there. Also here are some pictures as well.