Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Wolves! (finally)

Today started like yesterday – chilly and dark at 6:30 in Gardiner. Just like yesterday, I drove into the park and, just like yesterday, it got colder the further I went. By the time I got to the Lamar Valley, it was 0 degrees and foggy.

Just as I got there, I passed all the wolf watchers going the other way. So, I turned around and sort of followed them, stopping and looking at stuff along the way. When I got to the Hellroaring overlook, the turnout was full of cars and people with scopes looking out into the valley:

I couldn't park there, so I went about 1/3 of a mile back, parked in an empty turnout and walked up with my scope. Since it was a bit of a walk and the scope and tripod are heavy, I didn't bring any cameras, except my phone.

When I got there, they were seeing wolves – lots of wolves – 8, in fact. It was the entire Prospect Peak pack. They were running all around. Since the only camera I had was my phone, I tried to take a picture with it through the scope:

But, since we were about 1 2/3 mile away, it doesn't look like much. The dark spot on the left side of the dry pond is a wolf. It gets better.

After about an hour of this, the wolves all bedded down for their midday naps, so I moved on. I went back to the Lamar where the fog had burned off under a sunny sky and the temperature had reached a balmy 15 degrees. I stopped at the Lamar River trailhead and took some photos:

Including a selfie with my new hat:

It's really warm and the sides flip down to cover your ears.

Then I decided to take a short hike up Pebble Creek. The trail was well packed, so I didn't need my snowshoes, just the cleats. The trail passed over the creek many times with just the packed snow as a bridge:

After I got back to the truck, I headed back west thinking I would stop at the first overlook to see if they wolves were still there. I got delayed.

First, just past the Soda Butte cone were 4 moose laying in the snow. The pictures are terrible because it's a very dark moose in very bright snow

Then, at Coyote turnout, wolf watchers were there watching 8 members of the Junction Butte pack way up high, below Specimen Ridge. We watched them for about an hour until they all left down the ridgeline and into the trees. So, everybody moved down the valley hoping to see where they went. We found them up on South Divide. We could see them from a turnout just below the Lamar River bridge. At one point, 7 of them posed for us in good light and I had the camera ready for the scope:

I'm still working on getting better pictures through the scope, but from a mile away, this isn't bad.

All in all, a good day.