Yellowstone: Last 2 Days

Apart from Moose which proved elusive, we were treated to an amazing display of animals on our third day in the park. As we were traveling north to Mammoth Hot Springs on the west side, we saw cars stopped ahead and thought bison were around, but to our great surprise, we saw a very healthy grizzly bear walking in the trees parallel to the road. From our vantage point high in the RV, we got a great view. Later after we had a lunch break we continued east and saw two black bear cubs, although only one came out of the shadows so we could get a good look. Our next treat for the day was a one hour horse trail ride. Our trail took us along a canyon, past a herd of elk and through the remnants of the huge 1988 fire that burnt one-third of the 2.2 million acres of the park. Just as we left the corral, we came across an elk that had 6 points on each side of his antlers. Massive creature.

As we were packing up to leave Yellowstone this morning, we looked out the front window and saw this family of deer. They had obviously come to say farewell! Our drive out towards the East gate of the park was very pretty, lots of snow and gushing waterfalls all alongside the road – thank goodness for the wonderful drains that take the water under the road and down to the Shoshone River below. Our last wildlife sighting was a brown bear who was hunting in the grass and logs for his favourite leaves and roots. Yellowstone is America’s oldest National Park, and out of the others we have visited including Glacier, Bryce, Arches, Grand Canyon and Zion, this is our favourite.