Thursday, May 10,2018

Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone

Spent the morning getting into the park, getting to the campground, getting a site and getting the trailer all setup.

This afternoon I went out to see what was what. At Slough Creek, there is a wolf den visible from the road. The closest you can get to it is just over a mile away, so pictures are hard to come by. It's possible to use my phone through the spotting scope, but in the afternoon, the thermal turbulence makes getting any kind of picture amost impossible. I'll try in the mornings.

But, we could see what was going on – mostly wolves sleeping. Every hour or so, one would get up and go into the den. Another would come out. We called that changing shifts. The pups are only about 3 weeks old, so they need to be watched. They did come out and stood at the den entrance around 4:00 for about 5 minutes. They are small, it was far and warm, so they were hard to see. We weren't even sure of the count – 3 or 4.

Later, I saw a grizzly bear - also far away. I did take some pictures of bighorn rams all scraggly looking as they lose their winter coats:

And a couple of pronghorn antelope:

The weather is supposed to be chilly and rainy the next few days. I don't know how that will affect things.