Touring the Park

Today was Joyce's,birthday and since she is moving to Idaho, we decided to tour the park.

We left Mammoth and headed towards the North East Entrance. We were very fortunate to see lots of animals today starting with these bison and antelope hanging out near Lamar Valley.
At Pebble Creek, we saw these 2 moose munching on willow brush.

We exited the park via the North East Entrance and drove on out to the "big city" of Cooke City, MT. We stopped at the Bearclaw Deli for coffee, hot chocolate, sweet rolls, and their signature bear claw pastries. Yum!

Main Street, Cooke City:

Heading back towards Mammoth, I saw a HUGE black wolf moving swiftly on the side of the road. We pulled over and jumped out. It was being chased by a coyote! We watched them climb up the far hillside until the big black wolf became a little dot. I never got a picture of them because they were moving too fast. We think that the wolf must have been near the coyote's den where there were probably coyote pups.

Once back at Mammoth, we decided to head south towards the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. I've got a hundred pics of the canyon, but it never gets old! Here's another:

Then we headed to Hayden Valley. Surprisingly, the bison and elk herds that usually fill the valley were no where to be seen. We did have this nice view from the pullout where we ate our sack lunch picnic:

After our lunch, we headed back home to Mammoth disappointed that we hadn't seen a bear before Joyce left the park. Low and behold, right before we got to Obsidian Cliff, there were cars stopped along the road and people standing at the edges of the road. Right in front of us crossed a grizzly bear with 2 cubs!!!!

We sat and watched the cubs for several mintues. They are adorable!

For dinner tonight, a group met at Rosie's in Gardiner for desserts to celebrate Joyce's birthday:

It was a great day in the park!

Tower Creek Trail

After church, Suzanne, Tricia, Sandy, Karen, Rebekah, and I drove out to the Tower Falls area to go hiking. Along the way, we saw a black bear that had climbed a tree:
Once we arrived at Tower Falls, we parked at the campground and started the Tower Creek Trail. It was not well maintained, and we even had to cross the Creek over a log jam:

The 1988 forest fires in the park covered this trail area. There is a lot of new growth restoring the forest. We climbed over countless dead and down trees on the trail.

At the beginning of the trail, we saw a skeletal remain of an animal that was probably taken down by wolves. Or, this animal didn't survive the winter or died of natural causes.

The only living creature I saw was a marmot hiding under a log:

We walked by 3 HUGE racks of elk antelers. This is the first one we walked by:

There were a couple ponds and a wild strawberry patch along the trail:

The second rack we walked past:

This is our view at lunch:

And the third; these antlers are quite heavy. Don't know how they manage to carry those things around!!! This one was definately the largest.

We walked 2.8 miles to the end of the trail, and then walked back out. The view coming back was pretty:

The trail was 5.6 miles total. On the drive back, we saw another black bear along the road:

And my personal favorite, baby bison! They are so darn cute and spunky: