pudgy_groundhog
Active member
During our two week trip in MT/WY we were in and out of Yellowstone. The first week we spent in a cabin in Cooke City (I posted that part of the trip here), five miles from the northeast entrance of Yellowstone and could easily pop into Lamar Valley in the evenings to watch for wildlife and sunsets. We also spent several days touring the park and seeing the sights.
Although we did some hiking (Mt. Washburn and Steve climbed Electric Peak), we mostly played tourists - looking for wildlife, walking the boardwalks to see the thermal features, and just enjoying the interesting and beautiful scenery. We've been to Yellowstone the previous two years, but this year was the first that Norah was really interested and it was fun seeing the park through her eyes.
All of the photos and trip notes are posted here and these are some of my favorite pictures and highlights of the trip:
Seeing the geysers erupt at night during a full moon was fantastic. We lucked into this one as we hadn't even planned on this extra day in the park after our Wind River trip. We scored a last minute cancellation for a room in Grant Village, which allowed us to spend the evening in the geyser basin around Old Faithful. We had an early dinner and after watching Old Faithful we set out for a hike through the basin. We had written down the prediction times for the other geysers in the area and were hoping to catch an eruption or two. We first watched Daisy erupt as the skies darkened and a full moon came out. Then we walked over to Castle Geyser and it looked like it was about to go. It had a few false starts to psych out the crowd, then it erupted and it was awesome:
Steve humored me by standing very still for a picture:
And this one is probably my favorite as the people add a sense of scale to the picture:
We had good luck with wildlife this trip and saw wolves, black bears, grizzlies, bison, pronghorn, elk, coyotes, bighorn sheep, marmots, pikas and various birds. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip - a lone bison in Lamar Valley at sunset:
The coolest wildlife sighting was watching an encounter between a coyote and a herd of bighorn sheep on Mt. Washburn. There is an active fire tower on Mt. Washburn and we made the easy hike one morning up there to find about 30 sheep in the rocks and lounging on the trail (primarily ewes and lambs). They were quite docile and weren't bothered by us, mostly just trying to avoid the bugs and stay cool. As we were getting ready to hike down the sheep migrated to a hillside to graze. Just then a coyote came trotting up the trail. The sheep immediately mobilized, grouped as a herd and retreated, then split into two groups - one with the lambs and a few ewes and another group of ewes that approached the coyote. The coyote was beginning to reconsider the whole endeavor and a few ewes chased him off. The babies were jostling for position on the rocks to watch the coyote retreat down the mountain. It was very cool to watch! And the lambs were adorable:
A few other pictures:
Lamar Valley in the early evening
Abyss Pool in the West Thumb Geyser Basin
Visitors amidst the massive steam clouds from Excelsior Geyser in the Midway Geyser Basin. This geyser has an impressive crater and puts out an amount of water in a day that Old Faithful takes two months to equal.
Thanks for looking!
Although we did some hiking (Mt. Washburn and Steve climbed Electric Peak), we mostly played tourists - looking for wildlife, walking the boardwalks to see the thermal features, and just enjoying the interesting and beautiful scenery. We've been to Yellowstone the previous two years, but this year was the first that Norah was really interested and it was fun seeing the park through her eyes.
All of the photos and trip notes are posted here and these are some of my favorite pictures and highlights of the trip:
Seeing the geysers erupt at night during a full moon was fantastic. We lucked into this one as we hadn't even planned on this extra day in the park after our Wind River trip. We scored a last minute cancellation for a room in Grant Village, which allowed us to spend the evening in the geyser basin around Old Faithful. We had an early dinner and after watching Old Faithful we set out for a hike through the basin. We had written down the prediction times for the other geysers in the area and were hoping to catch an eruption or two. We first watched Daisy erupt as the skies darkened and a full moon came out. Then we walked over to Castle Geyser and it looked like it was about to go. It had a few false starts to psych out the crowd, then it erupted and it was awesome:
Steve humored me by standing very still for a picture:
And this one is probably my favorite as the people add a sense of scale to the picture:
We had good luck with wildlife this trip and saw wolves, black bears, grizzlies, bison, pronghorn, elk, coyotes, bighorn sheep, marmots, pikas and various birds. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip - a lone bison in Lamar Valley at sunset:
The coolest wildlife sighting was watching an encounter between a coyote and a herd of bighorn sheep on Mt. Washburn. There is an active fire tower on Mt. Washburn and we made the easy hike one morning up there to find about 30 sheep in the rocks and lounging on the trail (primarily ewes and lambs). They were quite docile and weren't bothered by us, mostly just trying to avoid the bugs and stay cool. As we were getting ready to hike down the sheep migrated to a hillside to graze. Just then a coyote came trotting up the trail. The sheep immediately mobilized, grouped as a herd and retreated, then split into two groups - one with the lambs and a few ewes and another group of ewes that approached the coyote. The coyote was beginning to reconsider the whole endeavor and a few ewes chased him off. The babies were jostling for position on the rocks to watch the coyote retreat down the mountain. It was very cool to watch! And the lambs were adorable:
A few other pictures:
Lamar Valley in the early evening
Abyss Pool in the West Thumb Geyser Basin
Visitors amidst the massive steam clouds from Excelsior Geyser in the Midway Geyser Basin. This geyser has an impressive crater and puts out an amount of water in a day that Old Faithful takes two months to equal.
Thanks for looking!
Awesome photo's!!! 
