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.