Fiona's Adventures: Week 9- Howling for Wolves

Monday 20th October- Thursday 23rd October

My week went by as usual. Pretty much into a routine now between classes, work and assignments. I had an exam on Tuesday for my Habitat Conservation class. It went quite well but it was fairly long and I had to rush some parts. Most of our evenings were spent getting ready for Yellowstone. We visited a hunting shop for camping supplies. We were amazed at all the stuffed animals they had in various poses.

Fog rolling down Mt. Sentinel

Friday 24th October-

Had my mammalogy class at 8am which had so few people there the lecturer thanked us all for coming. We talked about mammal hibernation and how they cope with drastic temperature changes. When I got home from work I packed for Yellowstone and had lunch. We were due to leave at 3 and only got delayed by an hour after Shannen, Dave, Siobhan, Elliot, Kate, James and I all loaded our stuff into the RV. Our camper van was so cool, it was like we were relaxing in a sitting room on the drive down. Shannen drove for the first two hours and then James took over. It was really dark by the time we got to our campground at 9pm, which was right beside the Yellowstone river. I cooked up some quick hotdogs for dinner and then Elliot, Siobhan and me headed down to the river bank. We could see the milky way, which was beautiful. Siobhan even spotted shooting stars.

Home for the weekend.

Attempting to cook hotdogs

Shannen, Dave, James, Kate, Siobhan and Elliot.

Yellowstone River at night

Saturday 25th October-

We got up nice and early but couldn't leave the campsite until after 9am when we paid the owner. As we were leaving we saw some young elk right beside the road. We headed straight for the park and our first destinations along the road from Mammoth to Norris; Golden Gate, Obsidian Cliff and the Roaring Mountain. From Norris to Madison we stopped at Norris Geyser Basin and Artists Paintpots.I hadn't seen any of these on the tour of Yellowstone I went on so it was great to see them. The geyser basin was spectacular and we even found microbes flying the Irish flag :P . The artists paintpots however were kind of a disappointment, we were expecting something inspiring with a name like that. After these we stopped and had lunch near Gibbon Falls and then continued south to the Fountain Paint Pots, Grand Prismatic Springs and Old Faithful. I'd already seen these but they are still really cool. Old Faithful wasn't due to go off for an hour so we decided to wander around the information center for a while. I asked one of the rangers if there had been any recent wildlife sightings and apparently there had been a grizzly bear walking around Old Faithful just an hour before! Hopefully we will be lucky enough to see one. While we were waiting outside for Old Faithful to go off a chipmunk climbed onto the boardwalk near us. I was taking pictures of it when a lady stomped her foot to scare it away because "it's going to jump in my bag!" When the geyser went off there was the usual chorus of "ooh" and "ahh" as people were amazed by its height. When we were heading back to the caravan Dave and Elliot spotted a dog which was in fact a coyote! After Old Faithful we headed back north and decided to try to make it to the canyon before nightfall. We just about made it there with enough light left to see the waterfall. Once we got back to our campsite I attempted to cook burgers on our little grills. Shannen showed us how to make smores, which were tasty. We all sat around, had a few cans and watched out for shooting stars.

"Can I tag along too?!"

The Golden Gate

Selfie

The Roaring Mountain

Some Irish algae!

A chipmunk

Old Faithful

Coyote casual out crossing the carpark!

Yellowstone canyon

Stargazing

Sunday 26th October-

We wanted to go to the Lamar Valley before sunrise so we got up early and were on the road by 7am.We watched a beautiful sunrise on the way and saw plenty of bison too. The Lamar Valley was just like how I'd seen it in so many documentaries. This was supposed to be the best place to see wildlife especially wolves. We kept our eyes peeled as we drove along and stopped often to check something out with binoculars. At one point Shannen was sure she had spotted a bear but we couldn't pull over in the RV so had to keep going. We turned around near the east entrance and Shannen and I were feeling quite disheartened that we had not seen anything. When we got to the spot where Shannen had spotted something we pulled over and sure enough there was a bear! And not just any bear, it was a huge grizzly feeding on a carcass! We watched it for a while and I got the best picture I could. It was quite far away so it looks quite small in my photos. About 1 km further down the valley Siobhan spotted what we'd been waiting for...Wolves! A pack of 6; 3 rocky mountain black, 2 two-tones and one gray. The alpha was a large black wolf and led the pack as they traveled along the valley. Me and Kate walked into the sage and howled at them. The alpha paused, looked our way and then trotted off. It was amazing, a life wish accomplished to see wild wolves. Just in case you hadn't noticed I do quite like wolves :P. We drove to Slough Creek for breakfast, passing a herd of bison on the way. When we tried to head back to the road though the bison had come onto the road. As it was mating season there were two bulls starting to butt heads and since that was about 2 tons crashing beside the camper we were slightly nervous. Thankfully James managed to get us out of there in one piece! As we headed back to Mammoth hot springs it started to snow. We quickly walked around the springs and went to the visitor center to ask about the weather. It was due to snow heavily all day so we decided it would be safest to head home. As we drove north out of Yellowstone we passed elk, pronghorn and mule deers. Yellowstone truly is one of the best places to see wildlife. While we were fleeing from the snow storm we drove straight into another big storm. Rain bashed our RV and wind rocked it from side to side. Once we got onto the highway we left the storm behind us. I took photos of the Montana countryside as we drove home. Shannen took over from James driving after the halfway point. We were back in Lewis and Clark for 6.30 but it was after 9 by the time we'd unpacked it, cleaned it and dropped it back to the rental place in Lolo. I was able to relax for the rest of the night.