Travel Destination: Yellowstone Day 3

You can find Day 1 here: https://boballab.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/tarvel-destination-yellowstone-day-1/

and Day 2 here: https://boballab.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/travel-destination-yellowstone-day-2/

See what happens when you put off doing the next installment of a series? You get distracted by another project, then another, then real life intrudes and the next thing you know it has been almost a year since you did the trip you are posting about. Oh well that is just the way it goes sometimes, but luckily Mother Nature is co-operating with me by still dumping snow on Yellowstone so what I’m going to post about hasn’t been overtaken by time so to speak.

On Day 3 of our stay at Yellowstone was a day of contrasts.

We started the day out with a Grizzly bear siting just 14 miles into the park and just south of where the west entrance road meets the Grand Loop:

As you can see from the size this is a young Grizzly out for a morning stroll along the banks of the stream and munching on the grass. This was our first bear sighting and we were the first to spot him, so we were able to easily pull off and get those shots of him. What usually happens is that when a bear is sighted a large crowd forms there and the side of the road gets clogged. So unless you are one of the first to spot the bear it tends to be hard to get shots of them.

From this exiciting start of the day we were hoping to have a good day exploring the area along the rtoad to the south entrance and a visit to the Grand Teton national park just south of Yellowstone (the entrance fee to Yellowstone also covers Grand Teton). The previous day the locals that worked in the park told us that Moose like to hangout on the south by southeast side of the park and along the road to the south entrance. So we drive down that way admiring the scenery hoping to spot a Moose or two and what do we get? Bupkis. We didn’t spot one Moose ora any other animal besides Bison after seeing that young Grizzly. This continued all the way out the South Entrance to Yellowstone, the road trip down to Grand Teton and back in through the South Entrance and onto the Grand Loop. Last year the road outside the South Entrance was going under contruction as well as other local roads near Grand Teton which slowed us down and basically made it impossible to make the trip we wanted to. So we turned around early and made the drive out to the East Entrance to Yellowstone.

On the way to that entrance we start climbing up the mountain and into an area of the park that not to long ago in the past had a massive forrest fire. Basically the landscape looked like a waste land where nothing could survive. When we got near the East Entrence we turned around to head back and the one thing we expected might happen in other areas of the park happened in this waste land: Wildlife dashed out of nowhere in front of the car.

There was three Deer that ran out in front of us and it happened so fast we were lucky to get this shot of the last Deer heading off into the burned out waste land.

After that it was back onto the main road and a drive around the Grand Loop with stops to look at some water falls followed by Roaring Mountain which no longer roars:

We also spotted a young buck Elk:

At the end of the day as we headed back to the hotel we spotted a small herd of Elk crossing the stream and getting a drink:

If you noticed one Elk was keeping on eye out on us:

Also staying well back and hidden was this “little” Elk:

So the day that started out with such great promise turned into a long bumpy drive to Grand Teton, followed by the heart racing, slam on the brakes meeting with the Deer out by the East Entrance and ended with the tranquil picture of the Elk crossing the stream and looking to bed down for the night.