For our annual autumn trip this year we decided to mix things up a little and go looking for wolves in Yellowstone instead of taking our traditional excursion to Grand Teton. We hoped to substitute and abundance of wildlife sightings for the sweeping landscapes of Grand Teton this year.
Anybody that has visited the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park would have a hard time missing the crowd of wolf observers reliably found there. Eager searchers disburse along the highway equipped with two-way radios and powerful spotting scopes, quickly to converge on a spot when word goes out of a sighting.
Through a little detective work at the gas station in Gardiner, I learned to look for a yellow Xterra, driven by a gentleman by the name of Rick McIntyre, a long-time wolf researcher and ranger. Sure enough, it only took one pass through the Lamar to locate the yellow Xterra and join the group of veteran spotters.
Rick turned out to be an extremely gracious guy. When we approached the group he quickly offered to let my kids look through his spotting scope at the Alpha male of the Lamar Canyon pack. The wolf was visible with the naked eye, but barely. However, through the scope or binoculars we had a great view of the black male. He traveled rapidly along the contour of the hill north of the highway about a quarter mile from our spot, finally slipping out of sight up a canyon.
Upon losing sight, the congregation drifted west to a turnout near the Lamar Valley Buffalo Ranch. While the group eagerly scoured the terrain for signs, Rick showed my kids how to use a radio tracker and explained about now the collars are placed on the wolves and how they are tracked.
Soon word came of a sighting and we moved west again. There, in a gorge north of the road, we saw two pups and the alpha female. They were about a half mile away, difficult to see but still visible through our binoculars. We watched and waited until long after they had disappeared before finally moving on to look for other wildlife. Both sightings had been far too distant to photograph. But seeing wolves in the wild for the first time was exhilarating.
Overall it was a great trip. We saw a wide variety of animals. For the first time we saw a fox, coyotes and wolves all in the same trip. We also spotted a black bear, grizzly bear, elk, mule deer, bighorn ewes and lambs, cottontail rabbits, herds of bison, Canada geese, a trumpeter swan and a couple of bald eagles. More often than not the animals were either too distant to photograph or were spotted after sunset. But we were happy to experience the park this way. Most of our sightings came on the first day. After that the weather turned and we saw precious little. But here are some of the photos from the trip.
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