Wildlife galore in the Lamar Valley!

I talked to a park ranger who told me that 4.1 million people visited Yellowstone last year and they had 19 feet of snow this winter. Much of it hasn't melted at the higher elevations. 

The Lamar Valley is the least visited and most remote portion of the park. It was probably my favorite experience so far. It is the area that you are most likely to see wildlife and it was absolutely amazing. Not much to capture on an iPad but Mark got some great shots. I got to check off seeing bears in the wild from my bucket list. A black bear mom and three tiny cubs made an appearance.  Later, we saw a mother bear and two older cubs. Everywhere we looked there was bear after bear.  

By the way, as we were watching the bears, we were with about a hundred of our closet photography friends. Just nuts!  

We saw antelope, one fox and one coyote, momma bison and calves, boy bison butting heads,and mangy looking molting deer. Through a telescope, a lady let me look at a wolfs den. A mom and two pups were putting on a show. It was so far away that she recorded it on an iPhone adapter for her telescope and we could watch a shaky video. 

I don't know anything about bison but I do know about mom's. And to tell you there is not much of a different between human moms and bison moms.  They were grunting, nudging and leading the calves. One mom bison would stand watch looking back and forth for danger while the others passed and then she would take up the rear of the line. Just fascinating. They went single file - mom, baby, mom, baby using a highway bridge to cross the Yellowstone river. Mark was out taking photos and got stuck on the bridge with them. He finally put some cars between him and the moms and made it back to the car with no extra holes. 

G

Tower falls was the non wildlife highlight for the day. 

We have averaged about 7 miles of walking , 15,000 steps and 85 floors a day so we made reservations for our splurge fancy meal tonight at a fairly new restaurant in the park. 

And our selfie of the day outside of our hotel on the way to dinner. And yes, I do think we look tired. Busy and packed days. Next vacation may need to be sitting at the beach.