For this second northern area of the Park, we stayed in a small cowboy town called Gardiner about a mile from the entrance gate. We had three days here and the accommodation was fully equipped for self catering so we were able to prepare our own meals as well as making use of the washer/dryer.
The first two mornings we rose early and drove into the Park soon after 6am, just as the sun was climbing above the rim of the mountains. This was also a good time for seeing wildlife before it got too busy; dawn and dusk being the best time to see wolves in particular. We were very fortunate to see three wolves, albeit from a distance and there's only one photo below as Paul's camera struggled without a long enough lens. On each occasion the kindly local people allowed us a closer view through their scopes.
Each day we drove through the Lamar Valley which is home to huge herds of bison and many calves were evident at this time of year. We would turn around soon after a place called Soda Butte when on most occasions we saw a black bear, who we named the Soda Butte Bear. He was generally close to the road munching his way through the grass and flowers in the area.
On the first morning we were incredibly lucky, having spent some time observing a wolf, we turned around and the Soda Butte Bear was behind us and on the slope above there was a grizzly.
On the middle day, Paul spotted what at first he thought was a fox not far from the road. There were two animals, one much larger than the other and from their colouring we thought they might be wolves. We followed them up the road and observed them crossing the road and up over a ridge. By this time many people had stopped and opinion was divided as to whether they were wolves or coyotes. The majority was the latter, and there's a photo below of the larger animal looking directly at the camera.
The final day we visited the Park twice, both morning and evening. We didn't see the Soda Butte Bear that day but did see a black bear cub which had just been forced away by its mother and was making his own way in the world (this is the photo of the bear walking along a log). We found this out by speaking to a ranger who was nearby keeping observers at a safe distance. A distant wolf was seen both morning and evening and on our return journey as the sun was setting we got caught in a traffic jam "Yellowstone style" as bison congregated on the road and were reluctant to move. This turned out to be a fortunate delay as we came across a black bear with two tiny cubs by the roadside (Paul apologises for the poor quality of the photo but the light was fading fast). The photo of the sunset was taken moments later. Our final encounter was a huge herd of elk but definitely too dark to capture on camera.
Apart from the wildlife, the landscape in the northern part of the Park was a sight to behold with towering snow capped mountains, rugged canyons and lush green valleys. We'll do a separate blog showing some of the wild flowers in the whole Park.
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