Late spring trip May 31-June 6
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 9:53 pm
This is quite late, but figured I should give a report of my trip, as I have so enjoyed others taking the time to do it. I'll try to keep it as short as I can, since it's a bit out of date. But here goes.
This was a very "you just missed it" trip, had some really wild weather through a bunch of it, but we still saw a lot and really enjoyed ourselves! Not a very "bear-y" trip compared to what everyone else was talking about, but still saw several bears ... one in a rather fun and weird experience we've never had before.
My sister and I set out quite early on May 31, heading toward Gardiner. As we got near the turnoff to Highway 20, we decided we'd try to find the Market Lake Wildlife Management Area that Max mentioned in one of his posts. We had a few minutes and it had sounded interesting (and when looked up, didn't seem like it would take too much of our Yellowstone time. Found it quite easily and had a grand time (did take some of our Yellowstone time, but it was by choice, as we were having a great time). Saw lots of pretty ducks, a bald eagle, a gorgeous Great Blue Heron, nice hawks, pied billed grebe, yellow-headed blackbird, white-faced ibis, swallows of various colors, other shorebirds, muskrats, western tanager that posed nicely for us ... lots of really fun stuff. Most fun was an American Bittern. We'd seen some a couple of them before, but always in yellow/brown rushes or reeds where they would stick their necks up and try to look like a stick -- and they were very hard to see. But this one happened to be in the middle of a very green patch of grass. It walked along VERRRRRYYYY slowly, pausing to stick it's neck up with the message, "I am a stick, you cannot see me..." except we could, very clearly, among the green. We chuckled and enjoyed the show. A very cool place we'd love to revisit. VERY quiet, but lots of things to see.
Continued on to West Yellowstone and headed up toward Gardiner. No grizzly on the Madison side, really saw very little heading up toward Norris -- one sandhill crane out in a meadow. Decided to head up toward the construction to see if the grizzlies that had been hanging around near the Norris end of the construction were around, but saw nothing. The lakes, however, were gorgeous. By the time we figured we were not going to see the bears, we were in the line for the construction and figured, what the hey, can't be that bad ... but it was! Yucky, muddy, long, bumpy -- we made very sure we did not go through it again. Nothing to see on the other side, either, but we did catch the owlets in Mammoth once we got there. Very cute. Decided to head straight down toward Lamar (we'd check into our hotel in Gardiner later). There was a nice black bear in the spot we tend to call the "bear hammock" -- just a ways north of Floating Island, where there are two big pullouts (one on either side of the road) in a little flat area. We've seen bears there almost every year, and this year was no different. Not a huge bear jam, and a chance to get our "we saw a bear" box checked off quickly! Nice big elk herd on the side of the hill near Petrified Tree, and a beautiful red fox hunting near the Yellowstone picnic area.It was getting late by now, but we kept saying we'd go just a little further into Lamar and THEN turn around and head back. Lots of bison, the osprey nest with ospreys in residence. Finally we decided to go as far as Pebble Creek campground and then turn around. Nothing (other than a nice hawk) on the way, nothing but bison at Round Prairie -- turned into the campground parking area and figured we'd just turn around, but as we were about to turn right and head back toward Roosevelt, we noticed a car that had crossed the bridge the other way had its brake lights on, so we turned left instead and headed toward the car to see what they were seeing (it was getting dark, but still light enough to see things). The car actually turned around and headed back toward the bridge, so we did, too ... and yes, there among the trees and water was a moose! Yay! We went slowly past (the pullout where we turned around was up the road a ways) and figured well, we've seen a moose, we'll just head on back to check in ... when my sister said she thought she MIGHT have seen something near the moose, a little something. We turned around in the parking lot and headed back up. From the opposite side of the road we were not sure there was anything there but the big moose, but when we turned around and came back ... YES, there was a tiny little baby moose following its mom! We have wanted to see a really baby baby moose for a long time, and this one couldn't have been very old -- it was very tiny and still wobbly on its little legs. Sooooooo very cute. Followed mom back toward the water and actually waded into the water with her before they both disappeared into the trees. We were jubilant! Wish I could post some of the photos I got, but you'll just have to trust me on this, it was a very cute little moose! Didn't get checked into our hotel until after 10:30 p.m., but it was very worth it!
Next couple of days we dodged rain, hail, wind and some sun ... but it didn't stop us from seeing thing (in fact, many people seemed to leave the park when the weather got bad, so it was not very crowded some times!). Tried Sheepeater Cliff a couple of times but only managed to see one or two marmots (not much sun, pretty cold, they weren't very active), along with some golden mantled groundsquirels. Got around the upper terrace drive (always love to see how many birds we can see, and there were lots of pretty ones). The owlets were always cute (and we saw the adults one evening in two different trees). Caught the Calcite sow once -- she was asleep under a tree and so we parked and waited with the crowd. Finally, down the tree came a tiny cub! (Everyone said there were two cubs, but I only ever saw one following her around and playing under the tree with her -- could have been a second while they were under the tree in the shade, but I couldn't make it out). Anyway, a lot of fun playing around with cub up and down the tree, up and down and around mom, finally running out from under the tree and into the sunlight. Cub was up and down trees (we could see it out on the branches many times) and once climbed out on very slender limbs near the ground -- it kept going further and further out onto the tiny limbs (very near the ground) and finally fell out of the tree onto mom and onto the ground. SO cute! We never really saw Rosie and the triplets -- one time she was across the road from Rainy Lake and down a bit -- we caught sight of her, but the rangers were hazing her back from the road. Weren't letting people to walk down from the pullout to see her. We drove past a couple of times, spotted the cubs once, and that had to do for us. Others said they saw her lots of times, but that was it for us. Did see the golden eagle nest (and the eagles) at Slough Creek. The badger den, of course, moved the day before we got there. People saw lots of moose at Round Prairie and bears at Petrified Tree, but other than the mama/baby moose our first night, nothing for us. Guess we got quality rather than quantity! Nothing much down in Hayden when we went -- one lone Harlequin pair down at LeHardy, lots of bison, some elk, some pronghorn, trumpeter swans at various places in Hayden and Lamar.
One VERY cool experience -- saw a couple of pronghorn just a ways down from the Trout Lake trailhead -- pulled over to watch and pretty soon two TINY babies popped up. They tottered around and about, sometimes nursing, sometime running back and forth, sometimes lying down. Just SO cute! Again, don't think they were very old -- still unsteady on their tiny toothpick legs. What an experience, just watching them go around and under and away from and back to mom. Also saw a nice fox trotting along the road and a couple of coyotes trotting up along the hillside in Lamar at various times. The wolf den at Slough apparently moved shortly after we got there -- heard about people seeing wolves, but never saw any ourselves. Did catch Castle geyser going off (and Old Faithful) on a trip down to that area. Coming down from Dunraven once we saw a cinnamon black bear down in a gully where we often see bears. Parked down the hill in a pullout and walked back up to where we could look down (well, I hiked up, sister's legs were giving her problems). The bear was browsing but kept looking back toward the trees. Sure enough, waiting long enough and here came a tiny little cinnamon cub! They stayed over by the trees, mostly, with not much of an angle to see them, but once the cub walked along a long and mama came over -- it sat up on its hind legs and batted at her face, and she kissed him! Really gave him a kiss. Just so cute! Saw another mom black bear with two tiny cubs (this wasn't a grizzly trip for us ... only griz we saw were way up on the side of the hills in Lamar) heading up a hillside near the "bear hammock" -- heading out into the sage flats. Cubs were VERY tiny and following mom quite close. Really fun and cute! Saw what appeared to be a boar in that same area later in the day, which may be why mama was heading the other direction earlier in the day. Saw a nice bull elk with an already nice-sized rack, another beautiful western tanager, another sandhill crane, cute little red dogs ... just lots of things.
Then there was our last day in Yellowstone -- Saturday morning. Decided to try Sheepeater one more time, since the sun was shining. Got over there and we were all alone (it was quite early) and we sat and watched and eventually saw a couple of marmots, a pretty red squirrel, some lovely birds. Decided to walk up the trail a few yards to see if there were more marmots up further. More rocks, but no more marmots. I started back toward the car (we hadn't gone more that 10-20 yards, I'd say), and my sis was following on the other trail. As I neared the picnic area, I saw a streak of brown running around the rockwall -- I said to my sister that hey, there was a marmot, but by the time I said it, I realized it wasn't a marmot -- too big for a marmot and it ran ... like a bear! I told my sister there was a bear in the picnic area, and the impression was it was small, so maybe a cub, which would mean a mother around somewhere. I said we probably needed to get into the car (which was only a few yards away by then. As I got closer to the car, I could see around the cliff and there was a big black bear there ... I told sis there was the mom and let's get in the car. We did, and the bear emerged, and it was the cinnamon bear I'd seen originally (it looked black in the shadows), a pretty good sized bear, but not huge. It was a bit skittish. We stayed in the car as it came out into the picnic area, then dashed back, then came out into the open, then dashed back ... then went over to the toilet building and tried like anything to get into it, nudging the door, up on its hind legs to try to find a way in ... we were having such a great time just watching. It finally headed down the road. We watched it go, figuring it was going either across the water or up into the trees. We watched the marmots (which had emerged once the bear left) and then headed down the road to see if the bear was still visible. And it WAS still there, first on the water side, then it crossed the road and up into the trees. We spent quite a bit of time, all alone, watching the bear as it dug under a log, got up on the log and walked along it, etc. SO much fun. A service truck came along (must admit we were parked in the middle of the road, as nobody was there), so we moved, but did come back just to see if it was still there. It was. Someone passed us as we were turning around and we TRIED to signal that there was a bear around, but we figured they'd see if right along the road. But they didn't! We watched a little longer, until it wandered toward the tree line, then went down to the picnic area where the folks were just getting out of the car. They hadn't noticed the bear! They got back in their car to see if the bear was still there. We hung around the marmots for a while longer then went back down -- bear wasn't there. We heard later it had been hanging around Sheepeater for a while (and after), but we didn't know that until after. Had never seen a bear near Sheepeater -- and will likely never see another like that! No grizzlies at Swan Lake flats (where there had been several times), but we did get the cinnamon at Sheepeater!
Headed down to Grand Teton from there ... will include that report later. This is all I can handle in one sitting!
This was a very "you just missed it" trip, had some really wild weather through a bunch of it, but we still saw a lot and really enjoyed ourselves! Not a very "bear-y" trip compared to what everyone else was talking about, but still saw several bears ... one in a rather fun and weird experience we've never had before.
My sister and I set out quite early on May 31, heading toward Gardiner. As we got near the turnoff to Highway 20, we decided we'd try to find the Market Lake Wildlife Management Area that Max mentioned in one of his posts. We had a few minutes and it had sounded interesting (and when looked up, didn't seem like it would take too much of our Yellowstone time. Found it quite easily and had a grand time (did take some of our Yellowstone time, but it was by choice, as we were having a great time). Saw lots of pretty ducks, a bald eagle, a gorgeous Great Blue Heron, nice hawks, pied billed grebe, yellow-headed blackbird, white-faced ibis, swallows of various colors, other shorebirds, muskrats, western tanager that posed nicely for us ... lots of really fun stuff. Most fun was an American Bittern. We'd seen some a couple of them before, but always in yellow/brown rushes or reeds where they would stick their necks up and try to look like a stick -- and they were very hard to see. But this one happened to be in the middle of a very green patch of grass. It walked along VERRRRRYYYY slowly, pausing to stick it's neck up with the message, "I am a stick, you cannot see me..." except we could, very clearly, among the green. We chuckled and enjoyed the show. A very cool place we'd love to revisit. VERY quiet, but lots of things to see.
Continued on to West Yellowstone and headed up toward Gardiner. No grizzly on the Madison side, really saw very little heading up toward Norris -- one sandhill crane out in a meadow. Decided to head up toward the construction to see if the grizzlies that had been hanging around near the Norris end of the construction were around, but saw nothing. The lakes, however, were gorgeous. By the time we figured we were not going to see the bears, we were in the line for the construction and figured, what the hey, can't be that bad ... but it was! Yucky, muddy, long, bumpy -- we made very sure we did not go through it again. Nothing to see on the other side, either, but we did catch the owlets in Mammoth once we got there. Very cute. Decided to head straight down toward Lamar (we'd check into our hotel in Gardiner later). There was a nice black bear in the spot we tend to call the "bear hammock" -- just a ways north of Floating Island, where there are two big pullouts (one on either side of the road) in a little flat area. We've seen bears there almost every year, and this year was no different. Not a huge bear jam, and a chance to get our "we saw a bear" box checked off quickly! Nice big elk herd on the side of the hill near Petrified Tree, and a beautiful red fox hunting near the Yellowstone picnic area.It was getting late by now, but we kept saying we'd go just a little further into Lamar and THEN turn around and head back. Lots of bison, the osprey nest with ospreys in residence. Finally we decided to go as far as Pebble Creek campground and then turn around. Nothing (other than a nice hawk) on the way, nothing but bison at Round Prairie -- turned into the campground parking area and figured we'd just turn around, but as we were about to turn right and head back toward Roosevelt, we noticed a car that had crossed the bridge the other way had its brake lights on, so we turned left instead and headed toward the car to see what they were seeing (it was getting dark, but still light enough to see things). The car actually turned around and headed back toward the bridge, so we did, too ... and yes, there among the trees and water was a moose! Yay! We went slowly past (the pullout where we turned around was up the road a ways) and figured well, we've seen a moose, we'll just head on back to check in ... when my sister said she thought she MIGHT have seen something near the moose, a little something. We turned around in the parking lot and headed back up. From the opposite side of the road we were not sure there was anything there but the big moose, but when we turned around and came back ... YES, there was a tiny little baby moose following its mom! We have wanted to see a really baby baby moose for a long time, and this one couldn't have been very old -- it was very tiny and still wobbly on its little legs. Sooooooo very cute. Followed mom back toward the water and actually waded into the water with her before they both disappeared into the trees. We were jubilant! Wish I could post some of the photos I got, but you'll just have to trust me on this, it was a very cute little moose! Didn't get checked into our hotel until after 10:30 p.m., but it was very worth it!
Next couple of days we dodged rain, hail, wind and some sun ... but it didn't stop us from seeing thing (in fact, many people seemed to leave the park when the weather got bad, so it was not very crowded some times!). Tried Sheepeater Cliff a couple of times but only managed to see one or two marmots (not much sun, pretty cold, they weren't very active), along with some golden mantled groundsquirels. Got around the upper terrace drive (always love to see how many birds we can see, and there were lots of pretty ones). The owlets were always cute (and we saw the adults one evening in two different trees). Caught the Calcite sow once -- she was asleep under a tree and so we parked and waited with the crowd. Finally, down the tree came a tiny cub! (Everyone said there were two cubs, but I only ever saw one following her around and playing under the tree with her -- could have been a second while they were under the tree in the shade, but I couldn't make it out). Anyway, a lot of fun playing around with cub up and down the tree, up and down and around mom, finally running out from under the tree and into the sunlight. Cub was up and down trees (we could see it out on the branches many times) and once climbed out on very slender limbs near the ground -- it kept going further and further out onto the tiny limbs (very near the ground) and finally fell out of the tree onto mom and onto the ground. SO cute! We never really saw Rosie and the triplets -- one time she was across the road from Rainy Lake and down a bit -- we caught sight of her, but the rangers were hazing her back from the road. Weren't letting people to walk down from the pullout to see her. We drove past a couple of times, spotted the cubs once, and that had to do for us. Others said they saw her lots of times, but that was it for us. Did see the golden eagle nest (and the eagles) at Slough Creek. The badger den, of course, moved the day before we got there. People saw lots of moose at Round Prairie and bears at Petrified Tree, but other than the mama/baby moose our first night, nothing for us. Guess we got quality rather than quantity! Nothing much down in Hayden when we went -- one lone Harlequin pair down at LeHardy, lots of bison, some elk, some pronghorn, trumpeter swans at various places in Hayden and Lamar.
One VERY cool experience -- saw a couple of pronghorn just a ways down from the Trout Lake trailhead -- pulled over to watch and pretty soon two TINY babies popped up. They tottered around and about, sometimes nursing, sometime running back and forth, sometimes lying down. Just SO cute! Again, don't think they were very old -- still unsteady on their tiny toothpick legs. What an experience, just watching them go around and under and away from and back to mom. Also saw a nice fox trotting along the road and a couple of coyotes trotting up along the hillside in Lamar at various times. The wolf den at Slough apparently moved shortly after we got there -- heard about people seeing wolves, but never saw any ourselves. Did catch Castle geyser going off (and Old Faithful) on a trip down to that area. Coming down from Dunraven once we saw a cinnamon black bear down in a gully where we often see bears. Parked down the hill in a pullout and walked back up to where we could look down (well, I hiked up, sister's legs were giving her problems). The bear was browsing but kept looking back toward the trees. Sure enough, waiting long enough and here came a tiny little cinnamon cub! They stayed over by the trees, mostly, with not much of an angle to see them, but once the cub walked along a long and mama came over -- it sat up on its hind legs and batted at her face, and she kissed him! Really gave him a kiss. Just so cute! Saw another mom black bear with two tiny cubs (this wasn't a grizzly trip for us ... only griz we saw were way up on the side of the hills in Lamar) heading up a hillside near the "bear hammock" -- heading out into the sage flats. Cubs were VERY tiny and following mom quite close. Really fun and cute! Saw what appeared to be a boar in that same area later in the day, which may be why mama was heading the other direction earlier in the day. Saw a nice bull elk with an already nice-sized rack, another beautiful western tanager, another sandhill crane, cute little red dogs ... just lots of things.
Then there was our last day in Yellowstone -- Saturday morning. Decided to try Sheepeater one more time, since the sun was shining. Got over there and we were all alone (it was quite early) and we sat and watched and eventually saw a couple of marmots, a pretty red squirrel, some lovely birds. Decided to walk up the trail a few yards to see if there were more marmots up further. More rocks, but no more marmots. I started back toward the car (we hadn't gone more that 10-20 yards, I'd say), and my sis was following on the other trail. As I neared the picnic area, I saw a streak of brown running around the rockwall -- I said to my sister that hey, there was a marmot, but by the time I said it, I realized it wasn't a marmot -- too big for a marmot and it ran ... like a bear! I told my sister there was a bear in the picnic area, and the impression was it was small, so maybe a cub, which would mean a mother around somewhere. I said we probably needed to get into the car (which was only a few yards away by then. As I got closer to the car, I could see around the cliff and there was a big black bear there ... I told sis there was the mom and let's get in the car. We did, and the bear emerged, and it was the cinnamon bear I'd seen originally (it looked black in the shadows), a pretty good sized bear, but not huge. It was a bit skittish. We stayed in the car as it came out into the picnic area, then dashed back, then came out into the open, then dashed back ... then went over to the toilet building and tried like anything to get into it, nudging the door, up on its hind legs to try to find a way in ... we were having such a great time just watching. It finally headed down the road. We watched it go, figuring it was going either across the water or up into the trees. We watched the marmots (which had emerged once the bear left) and then headed down the road to see if the bear was still visible. And it WAS still there, first on the water side, then it crossed the road and up into the trees. We spent quite a bit of time, all alone, watching the bear as it dug under a log, got up on the log and walked along it, etc. SO much fun. A service truck came along (must admit we were parked in the middle of the road, as nobody was there), so we moved, but did come back just to see if it was still there. It was. Someone passed us as we were turning around and we TRIED to signal that there was a bear around, but we figured they'd see if right along the road. But they didn't! We watched a little longer, until it wandered toward the tree line, then went down to the picnic area where the folks were just getting out of the car. They hadn't noticed the bear! They got back in their car to see if the bear was still there. We hung around the marmots for a while longer then went back down -- bear wasn't there. We heard later it had been hanging around Sheepeater for a while (and after), but we didn't know that until after. Had never seen a bear near Sheepeater -- and will likely never see another like that! No grizzlies at Swan Lake flats (where there had been several times), but we did get the cinnamon at Sheepeater!
Headed down to Grand Teton from there ... will include that report later. This is all I can handle in one sitting!