A "Down Day" in Yellowstone

Only two inches fell overnight and since I need to pace myself for the week, we decided to do the long drive to Lamar Valley in Yellowstone today.  We left at a reasonable morning hour, just as the sun was coming up.  The drive through Gallatin Canyon was really nice as the sun shone brightly on new fallen snow.

On most of the drives through the canyon time passes quickly.  There's so much to see, including the twisting road.  We emerged out of the canyon only to find the weather quite different to the north and east.  It began to snow as we drove east on I-90 toward Livingston. Luckily it was just the nice pretty kind of snow, not the storm that can make highways so dangerous.

Driving through Paradise Valley is quite different from Gallatin Canyon.  Its wide open spaces and 70 mph speed limit yield incredible mountain views on all sides and it takes less than an hour to get to Gardiner, MT and the northwest entrance to the park.

As expected we saw lots of wildlife.  Many bird species are re-entering the area after the long winter and bluebirds were plentiful (Laurie's favorite bird?).  To quickly list what we saw, 8 coyotes, bighorn sheep, elk, bison, sandhill cranes, a harlequin duck, other water fowl I could not name, hundreds of mule deer, and last but not least, WOLVES!!!

We pulled out at the Slough Creek Campground pullout and saw 10 or so wolf-watchers there so we were hopeful that they may be watching some.  Sure enough, they were but it was not the Slough Creek pack (which apparently is no more) but the Druids.  A kind wolf-watcher helped us locate them and I set up my spotting scope to check them out.  Apparently, there were seven of them but many were lying down out of view.  We had a good view of 4 of them (2 black and 2 gray).  Unfortunately, they were about 2 miles away and there wasn't much "activity".  So, after getting a nice view and reaffirming that they were still reigning over Yellowstone, we moved into the Upper Lamar Valley.

For the first time, I saw bighorn sheep in Lamar.  Here they are:

We ate lunch at a pullout just beneath these beauties.  Later on, we had a minor bison traffic jam.  What trip to Yellowstone is complete without this event?!