Yellowstone - All the Living Things!

Jason and I have never been to Yellowstone - and after our trip, I seriously can't believe that I have never been there. I also can't believe that visiting the park wasn't on my top 10 - even top 5 list of places that I MUST visit. Quite simply, Yellowstone National Park is amazing if you love nature, animals, and geology. 

I really didn't know much at all about Yellowstone - except that it is a "super volcano." I didn't really research it before we left; all I really knew is that there was potential to see some animals in their wild environment, and that I might be able to see some geothermal activity (like Old Faithful).  I am actually happy that I didn't do much more research because discovering everything without expectations made it much more enjoyable for me. 

I took over 500 pictures from the 5 days that we were in West Yellowstone. I tried to pare them down to a manageable amount, and I broke that down into 3 blog posts (animals, geology, and our camping experience).  I LOVED my time in Yellowstone and I can't wait to go back!!

This particular blog post is dedicated to the many (MANY!!!!) animals we saw. I thought we might see an animal or two, but we saw hundreds (thousands?) of animals during our stay. The first "living thing" (as we called them) that we saw was this pair of elk as we made our way in to the park from the West Entrance.

ELK!!!

We were like everyone else who sees an animal for the first time - we totally pulled over and I jumped out to snap pictures before they might spring away. heh.  We later learned that if you see only one elk, that is actually a rare event (especially if you go through the majority of the park - not just the Old Faithful area).  We saw several herds of elk on our different drives. This one was on our way north to Mammoth Hot Springs. We saw a MUCH larger one another day, but those pictures were just too far away.

A HERD of elk!! Ooh!!

Once we got to Mammoth Hot Springs, the elk were everywhere near the hotel and the other buildings. They were close enough to touch (or PET and HUG!!), but there is a law that you can't get within 25 yards of prey animals (and 100 yards of predators). 

An elk up close and personal

The park rangers work hard to protect the animals. Here at Mammoth Hot Springs, they were putting up cones to block traffic and walking around to make sure people stayed far enough away. 

Look at all those silly elk. 

Even though I have seen plenty of elk over my lifetime, I still loved seeing them, especially so close and so cute. I saw a pair of baby calves getting their lunch from mom, but couldn't get a picture as we drove by (I did a lot of drive by pictures out the window on this trip!). But, I did get a picture of this gal getting ready to take a nap in the grass (you can see the park ranger in the background).

SO CUTE! Just look at that face!!!

Another animal that we saw ALL OVER THE PLACE was bison. Just like the elk, we totally pulled over the for the first one we saw and took pictures. But, just like the elk, we soon learned that you will see them everywhere if you journey around the park at all. In fact, we came across this herd and their young as we made our way to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. 

Even though these pictures don't show it, there were hundreds of bison here. And a poor Park Ranger trying to manage all the people pulled over and running after them to take pictures. 

"Yo, What up?"

We "safely" just stayed in the truck while I took pictures from the windows. This fellow (gal?) was eyeing us down quite a bit. I think he liked our truck cause he did let us pass, while giving us a nod of the head. Later on as we tried to leave the park, there was another bison just cruising down one lane of the road with a park ranger slowly driving behind it trying to get us out of the way. It was like a one bison parade! 

"I like your truck. Give it to me!"

We also spotted this deer on our interpretive walk at the mud volcano area. 

We didn't just see ungulates (hoofed mammals) on our Yellowstone adventure. We also saw birds! This is an amazing picture of a ton of Canada Geese!!!  Ok, you may have seen a ton of Canadian Geese before, but this is one of the living things we saw that I got a picture of, so you're welcome!

Those blobby things in the field are actually a ton of Canada Geese

We also saw this cute little guy while we were waiting for Old Faithful, which is not a chipmunk as I originally thought- it is a Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrel.  You just learn something new every day! 

"I'm cute. Now give me some food!" 

The first couple of days we had great luck with crowds and wait time. But for some reason, Monday and Tuesday were the busiest days for us. We came upon lines of cars like this one several times on those days. Usually a line like this meant that there was either an elk or a bison near or on the road (and, I don't blame people for slowing down or stopping to see them 'cause we got excited the first times we saw those animals as well).  

Huge line of cars. Our typical conversation: Jason: "I bet its a bison". Me: "I bet its an elk." And then we would wait to see who won. More than once it turned out that it was BOTH an elk and a bison, so I guess that would be a draw. 

But once, a line of cars were stopped because of a grizzly bear! By the time our truck had slowly made its way to a spot where we could view it, it was too late to see much because the bear had laid down in the grass and it was hard to really see it anymore. But, we did spend one day not going into the park and instead went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, so I was able to see a grizzly bear anyway (although I did NOT get to hug and pet a bear like I had hoped - lol). 

"Look at me climbing this tree!"

They are a non profit organization that takes in bears and wolves that otherwise would have been killed because they had become a nuisance/danger to the human population. They did a great job there - every 45 minutes or so they bring out another pair of grizzly bears to the viewing area. The caretakers hide food all over the place and under rocks/logs/etc. in between the pairs of bears. Then, when they bears come out, they run all over looking for food, flinging logs all over to get to it. Very cool!

Digging for hidden food

In the park, we also saw lots of humans, of course. Although for the most part our time in Yellowstone was not NEARLY as crowded as I thought it would be. Even here, waiting for Old Faithful, I never felt crowded or cramped. 

We also saw a lot of animals in the park that I didn't get pictures of, like:

Trumpeter Swan

American White Pelican

Clark's Nutcracker

There were others I couldn't really identify because I couldn't see well enough or it was too quick - like some sort of deer type animal jumping in front of the truck, or a rodent/small mammal type animal I saw near the creek (Marmot? Squirrel?).  I really REALLY wanted to see a moose in the wild. I don't think that I have ever seen a real live moose -in nature or in a zoo, but we were skunked (lol) in the moose department. O-well - next time!!

I was overwhelmed with the amount of animals in the park. I had no idea that we would see so many roaming wild. Even though all of them were not new to me, it was still overwhelming and very cool to see them so close/so many/in the wild.

My next post will be about the geological formations at Yellowstone, so look for that in a day or so!