Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Tower Fall Campground, Yellowstone

Well, that didn't work as planned. It came out OK, though.

When my alarm went off this morning at 5:00, it was raining. The barn photo needs the sun on the barn, so I knew that wasn't going to work. So I went back to sleep and planned to look for the bears later.

At 6:00 am, I got out and drove to where the bears had been seen. Sure enough, there they were:

Some of the closest and best grizzly photos I've gotten.

Then, it was drive up to Tower and get a campsite. Once again, it was intermittent rain all the way up. I got lucky and one of my favorite sites was open. It's back away from the road and overlooks the creek. I can hear the creek as I type this.

One added bonus is the bison in camp. He seems to like it here.

1002

Then it was off to see what could be seen. What was seen was bears – 7 of them, all black bears.

First was a single bear at Floating Island lake. It had a chunk of something it was guarding. I heard 2 stories as to what it was. One story had it as a bison calf it had killed yesterday. The other story was something that had died over winter in the lake and was just coming to the surface. Either way, all it did while I watched and dodged the rain was lay there and, occasionally look around.

This was attended by the usual traffic jam.

Next was a mom with 2 cubs at Lower Hellroaring. The traffic jam was way too big, so just looked as I drove past.

Next was a mom with one cub near Petrified Tree. They crossed the road in front of me and it as too fast for pictures.

Finally, there was a single black bear below Rainy Lake. Another giant traffic jam, so, instead of adding to it by stopping, I just looked as I drove past.

After dinner, I went out looking for wolf watchers and didn't find any. I did find an antelope with a newborn calf:

That's probably the best picture of the day. She had 2 of them and brought them, one at a time, across the road.