A Typical Summer Day in Yellowstone

A typical summer day in Yellowstone begins with an early morning croissant and coffee from the local bakery, followed by a short 45 minute drive through gorgeous scenery to the honky tonk of West Yellowstone. The left turn into the park takes you into another world. The Yellowstone patch of NW Wyoming attempts to be a preserve of the pre-settlement west with natural wildlife interactions and minimal human effects. But with 3 million visitors annually, you can imagine this is hard to achieve. The extent to which NPS is able to preserve Yellowstone's character is remarkable.

After visiting Yellowstone many times, one has to work not to get sanguine about what you see nearly every time: bald eagles ('the' nest on the entry road had two young, with parents hanging around nearby), bison (the massive heads of big bulls never fail to make an impression), elk by the dozens (we've decided females are a bit homely, but males with a full rack - wow, hardly a more majestic ungulate anywhere!), osprey (testimony to the abundant trout!), and the steaming, seething landscape of the geyser region. One never knows what other delights you will encounter around the next corner. Yesterday it was 2 sightings of black bears; one lone male (we think; it was large and by itself), and two bears - a mother and cub about half a mile away. The cub was adorable. Colin won the sharp-eyes contest of the day in spotting the first bear; it was about 100 yds away in deep dark woods. I was probably a close second as I spotted the cub running across the hillside 100 yds above the road as I was driving! We also spotted two coyotes yesterday to add to our list. We really enjoyed birdwatching at blacktail ponds along the Mammoth-Tower road, as well as the discovery of a new (to us) 6 mile one-way parallel road out that way with superb scenery and an off-the-beaten track feel.

To top off the day, we flyfished on the Madison at one of the pullouts. Chelsea Jean showed us all up by catching a small brown trout on a fly (with bobber!). Trout were jumping all around, feeding on an impressive hatch. Photo above was taken yesterday.