Sunday, February 21: Mammoth Hot Springs & Lamar Valley

The temperature dropped to 2 degrees last night and it didn't seem much warmer than that when we ventured out after breakfast. With a step-on guide to show us where to go and where to look, we headed east from Mammoth Hot Springs to visit Lamar Valley, which is winter range for elk and bison. And - in theory - where there are grazing animals, the predators will follow.

We saw a few elk, including a big bull elk grazing alongside the road. At this time of year, most of the elk from the northern part of the park have migrated into southwestern Montana for the winter.












On the other hand, we saw hundreds of bison throughout the day. Sometimes solitary animals, sometimes small groups, sometimes big gangs of them - but it is clear that there's no shortage of bison.

Our guide was hoping for a three-dog day by spotting wolf, coyote and red fox, but had to settle for 2 of the 3. We saw a couple of coyotes and a red fox. We looked high and low, but never did see the elusive wolf. Wolves in Yellowstone were eradicated many years ago and just re-introduced in 1995. Their population now stands at about 100, so we have more chances to see them before we leave. Still - no complaints in the canine department - the coyotes were charming and the red fox was a real beauty.

Another lucky sighting was a group of big horn sheep perched on a steep hill near the road. The bighorn is one of three mountain sheep found in North America; they graze on grasses and browse shrubs. They are well-adapted to climbing steep terrain where they seek cover from predators.

With or without animals, the scenery was pretty spectacular. Snow, mountains, rocks, streams - just beautiful.

Coming out of the valley, the snow kept getting deeper and deeper and the mountains loomed larger and larger. We slid between the Absaroka Range and the Beartooth Range into the little town of Cooke City, Montana - just outside the park boundary.










At Cooke City, we were surrounded by snowmobiles - a rather necessary means of transport since the road out of Cook City (further east) is closed by snow - and is open only about four months out of the year. We had lunch here and stretched our legs before heading back the way we came.

Things looked different going in the opposite direction - this time we spotted moose - a bull and a couple of cows - having their own lunch among the willows near the river. Very exciting to see this shy creature - they are not very common in these parts since forest fires in Yellowstone have destroyed so much of their favorite habitat.

More bison, including one fellow who had established himself in the middle of the road and had no intention of letting us pass. It seemed like he was the crossing guard, as several other bison crossed over while he cast evil looks at us. It's against the law to harass these guys, so we just sat back and enjoyed our first bison jam - as our guide pointed out, there are a lot worse places to be stuck in traffic than in Yellowstone. Amen to that.

We meandered back to Mammoth in late afternoon - time enough for a stop at the Visitor Center - nice exhibits and a good movie about the park. Upstairs they have stuffed animals, so we got to have another look at all the critters we had seen during the day.