Friday, August 29, 2014

August 28, 2014

Today was chores and driving. Lots of driving.

I needed to do laundry, so instead of going out to see wolves, I went straight to Canyon and did the clothes. I got back to camp around 10:00.

My legs were hurting from yesterday's climb in and out of Calcite Springs, I decided to go for a drive.

The day before had pointed out 2 things I could use. My fishing sunglasses are wrap-around types and fit fairly close. Because of the lack of air circulation, they fog up easily, making them useless after a hike. I needed to do something about that. The other was that one of my water filters that I use to make the river water drinkable had a notice that said to not use the filter if it had been frozen. Well, it spent all last winter in the back of the truck in the garage, to it definitely had been frozen. I needed to replace that.

I had gotten the filter at REI in Boulder, so, when I was getting gas, I asked the girl inside if Bozeman had one and she said yes. So, it was off to Bozeman – about a 2 ½ hour drive. They had the filter and an anti-fog spray that may help my sunglasses problem. After lunch, it was back on the road.

I came back through West Yellowstone and than across the park back to camp. All in all, nearly 300 miles of driving today.

One leg still hurts, so I'll hold off fishing for a couple of days and see if I can't get good photos of the Lamar Canyon wolves.
August 27, 2014

I finally got to really go fishing today.

First, I went back out to Soda Butte to see if anything was visible, but nothing showed. They had been seen earlier, but were all back in the trees when I arrived.

So, I went back to camp and made a lunch to take with me down into Calcite Springs. I hadn't been in there for 2 years, and the last time I was there, the fishing wasn't nearly as good as previous years. With the road construction, nobody was able to get in there last year, so I was hoping things had improved. One concern I had, though, was that I had seen somebody fishing in there with a guide. If the guides are taking people in there regularly, the fishing will probably degrade.

The hike down was mostly uneventful, except a big tree has fallen over the place where the trail goes over the edge of the canyon, blocking it. I had to find a new way down to the first part of the trail.

There was no worry about the fishing being bad. I landed 15 cutthroat in 2 hours and didn't even go down to the logjam. The largest was 18 inches, and 2 more were 14 inches. The rest were in the 10 to 12 inch range. Maybe it was because they haven't seen my ugly red humpy flies in 2 years, they were so enthusiastic. I'll go back in about a week.



After a rest and a shower, I went out to Soda Butte. It turned into a circus. There were around 20 cars at the same turnout as yesterday waiting for some activity. Then a woman came up and said she had seen a black wolf moving away from us down beyond Soda Butte. We sent her to tell Rick McIntyre, the wolf biologist, who was just a hundred feet away. Soon after that, Rick left heading that way. We stayed around for a while when Laurie Lyman, one of the people who help Rick, stopped by. She was talking with him on the radio and he was saying he was seeing the whole pack and telling her where to look. After a while, it became evident that there were too many ridges and trees blocking our view, so we all piled into our vehicles and headed down to where he was. Of course, by then the wolves had moved into a dense forest and we only got sporadic glimpses of them. Then, they were spotted further up towards where we had been waiting originally. So, we all hopped back into our cars and moved further up the valley. By now it was getting dark and I called it quits. I saw 3 pups for about 10 seconds.
August 26, 2014

Today I got to watch wolves for over 2 hours, sort of.

I got up around 7:00 am and drove out past Soda Butte on the northeast entrance road. There was a large group of cars parked in and around a turnout, so I joined them. They were seeing the Lamar Canyon pack. This is a newly formed pack of just 2 adults and 6 pups. The only problem was that there was dense fog lying just over the area we were looking into. You would see these ghostly wolf shapes moving about and then the fog would settle and you couldn't see anything. Finally, the fog lifted and we got about an hour of 40 lb “puppies” playing. In all, we saw 5 pups and the mother. Dad was out hunting somewhere.

I went back in the evening and was rewarded with a 2 second view of one of the pups moving between trees. This area seems close enough that I may be able to get photos, so I'll keep trying. They seem to be staying here for a while, according to the wolf biologists.

The rest of the day was camp chores – waste water disposal and filling the fresh water tank.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

August 25, 2014

Well, the weather is finally getting better. I was able to fish a little this afternoon in Tower Creek, that runs beside the campground. I caught 8 small rainbow trout and had several more get away.

The morning was spent in a nearly futile search to see wildlife. Each place I went either nothing had been seen or they had just gone into the woods and weren't visible.

At Slough Creek, though, there was a close encounter with antelope. There were several in the area and, just as I was getting ready to leave, a male joined them. They all skirted the turnout and the male posed for me. He was about 50 feet away:




The original image is so sharp, you can see his eyelashes. At the point that photo was taken, he was looking to take the group across the road, but traffic was making him hesitant. So, he took them back around the turnout:




And crossed there.
August 24, 2014

Still cold and rainy. Several weather reports say it's supposed to start clearing tomorrow and be nice on Tuesday.

That huge motorhome was noisy last night. Their heater sounds like a jet taking off and it kept waking me. So, about 7:00 I decided to just get up and see if the Junction Butte wolf pack were visible. When I got there, the people said there was a single wolf laying curled up out in the open. We watched it sleep for an hour. People came by and helped us watch. It was probably 2 miles or more away.

After a while, it sat up, howled a bit – and we faintly heard the pack answer. Then, it walked down the hill and out of sight behind another hill.

The only other things were a group of 3 bison swam across the Yellowstone River:



And an antelope posed for me:



This evening, a fox made the rounds through the campgound looking for ground squirrels.




It would stop and stand completely motionless for a minute before pouncing.

In contrast to the monster motorhome that was here last night, this camper is here tonight:




It is a couple from Austria. They shipped the camper to Argentina and then went to the southern tip of South America. From there, they drove all the way, except for going around the Panama Canal, to the Arctic Ocean in Alaska. They are now on their way to Baltimore to put the camper on a ship and head for home. They've been on the road for nearly a year now. My trailer, which is way bigger, got pretty small after 3 months last summer. I can't imagine living in that for a year.


August 23, 2014

Not much today. It's still cold and rainy so it was a lot of driving around looking for bears or wolves and not being very successful. So, I went to Roosevelt Lodge and got a nice long hot shower. Then I went to Gardiner and updated the blog and got some groceries.

After that, it was back down to the Hayden Valley to see if there was anything left of the bison, but all I saw was an immature bald eagle on the spot. Nothing of the bison could be seen.

When I finally got back to camp, this was parked in the next campsite:



It's a huge off-road motorhome from Europe. The couple shipped it from France to Nova Scotia and are traveling all the way to the tip of South America. It just towers over my trailer.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

August 22, 2014

It's still chilly and rainy. I decided to put off fishing until it clears up. The Lamar River is all muddy and is muddying the Yellowstone downstream from the confluence. The small streams are all swollen.

This morning I went out to Slough Creek and saw 6 members of the Junction Butte wolf pack. They were over a mile away, so there wasn't any chance for photos.

Then, in the afternoon I went down to the Hayden Valley to see if there were still bears on the bison carcass. There were. There were 2 grizzlies and, after they left, several more came up. At one point, 5 adult grizzlies came around a hill into view together.

During a lull in the activity, the rangers went down to the carcass to see the condition. They said it was almost gone. This was after 2 days.

Lots of people were coming and going and I was getting them to see the bears through the scope. One college age girl from Baltimore had told her friend that she really wanted to see a bear, but didn't want to get her hopes up. She got to see 4 and was so happy she was crying. The day before I had told the man from Victoria where he might see wolves – his daughter really wanted to see wolves – and they came back and said that they had seen them right where I said to go.

I didn't get back to camp until around 9:00pm.

It was a good day even if I didn't get to go fishing yet. It's supposed to clear up Monday or Tuesday, so I'll wait until then.

August 21, 2014

My alarm clock accidentally got set somehow last night and sent off at 5:30. I dozed for another half hour and got up at 600. The weather forecast for today was chilly and rainy, so I decided not to go fishing, yet, but to see what became of the dead bison in the Hayden Valley.

When I got there, 2 grizzlies were feeding on it – a female and her yearling cub :



I was up on a hilltop with several dozen other people across the road from the river. We had a good view of much of the northern part of the valley, the river itself and the road. Much entertainment was had when we knew something was about to cross the road but the oncoming cars didn't.

It was raining lightly off and on all morning.

After an hour or so, these bears left and a coyote that had been lurking around the edges became active. You can see it in the upper right of the picture above. It seemed to be more interested in hunting for ground squirrels or something than feeding on the bison. After about a half hour, it, too, left.

Just as I was thinking things were done for a while, someone pointed out a grizzly swimming the Yellowstone River towards our side. After some interference by people standing in the path it wanted to take, it crossed the road to the carcass and began feeding. Why people would want to interfere with a grizzly bear getting to its dinner is beyond me.

This bear was much larger and handled the half-ton bison with ease:






Around 10:00, this bear left and I decided that was enough for the morning. Lots of people had looked through my scope and binoculars, I let a couple from Switzerland use their camera on my big lens and take some photos, and a girl from Victoria, British Columbia worked the scope and took some pictures through it with her cell phone. Everybody left happy.

I went back to camp and had lunch. Then it was more driving around seeing pretty much nothing. I stopped in the Yellowstone Association in Gardiner and got an new wolf chart and learned that a wolf pair in the Lamar Valley did have pups, but I don't know where they are. Finding them will be a project for another day.

Later in the afternoon, I went back to the Hayden Valley and a new bear was on the carcass, but the traffic was so bad, you couldn't get closer than about ½ mile, so, after watching for a few minutes, I turned around and left.

On the way back, I saw a bunch of pelicans in the river and took some pictures



Then, it was back to camp for dinner. Just as I was cleaning up, a terrific thunderstorm came up and pelted the campground for a good hour. It's quit, now, though.

As the afternoon wore on, it got sunnier and sunnier, so I'm thinking tomorrow will be a fishing day.
August 20, 2014

Tower Fall Campground, Yellowstone

I made it here around 10:30 am and, as expected, several suitable campsites were available. By 11:30, I was all set up and eating lunch.

The rest of the day was driving around checking streams and hunting for wildlife.

I saw mountain goats on Baronette Peak and looked for osprey and eagles, but only saw one osprey.

On the way in, there was a big crowd in Hayden Valley and I assumed they were seeing a grizzly bear. While watching the mountain goats, I talked to a couple who had spent 2 days there watching the bears. There was a bison kill and, according to this couple, at one time 5 grizzlies in the area. So, later in the afternoon I went down to see. The carcass was almost gone, but there were 2 bears still in the area. One huge one was in some trees sleeping, but the other was on the edge of the trees. Almost as soon as I got the camera set up, it got up and left. I was able to track it for a while, but then I moved down the road a bit to get a better view. It never got really close, but I got a few pictures:



It appears that there may be another dead bison there, so the area may be good for bears and maybe wolves over the next 2 or 3 days.

It was starting to rain as the bear climbed a ridge and moved out of sight, so I went back to camp and had a shower and dinner.



August 19, 2014

Hatchet campground, east of Grand Teton National Park



Once again, I drove part way so I can get a good campsite in Tower Campground. As usual, the campground was almost empty when I got here and only half empty by dark.