October 16, 2015
Today we started our outing a little bit earlier by leaving Gardiner at 7:00 am. We started out towards the Lamar Valley in hopes of spotting a wolf or two. Shauna brought the wolf radio with to help locate the wolves if anyone sighted them. When we were about halfway to the valley we stopped and checked the radio. The Lamar Canyon Pack had been spotted! We drove as fast as we could over to the Trash Can/Picnic area of the Lamar Valley. Once there we found an ideal spot to hopefully see the wolves and climbed to the top of a hill and waited, as the wolves had gone back into the trees. While waiting we got to observe some bison herds, and we even spotted a grizzly up the mountain behind us. After waiting for a while, we decided to move down along the valley further to see if we could find a spot to observe the wolves. We then joined professional photographer McNeil Lyons on his observation point and watched 3 black wolves and 1 grey wolf cross the valley into an area of sagebrush, which we later found out was where the alpha male of the pack had taken down a deer. After losing sight of them in the brush, we again moved down the road and joined wolf biologist Rick McIntyre at his observation point. While we were there we could observe the wolves as they moved in and out of the sagebrush. In between we listened to Rick as he told the story of the Lamar Canyon Pack and how they changed drastically during the winter. This pack owes its survival mainly to the alpha female 926F. We then hiked back down and our exciting morning was over.
After all the excitement of the morning, we drove to Pebble Creek and ate lunch along the creek bed. We then had a little activity to help show and understand the first year in a wolf pup’s life. Once we had completed the activity, we loaded up and prepared for our next adventure. Our adventure found us at a little parking lot, which you could hike down and fish, observe, etc. the confluence of the Lamar and Yellowstone River. We hiked down along the edge of the Yellowstone River, higher up on a cliff, and along the way found a telemetry station for cutthroat trout. Along the way we also learned about lichens and moss. We then reached our destination along the edge of the Lamar River, which included a tiny little beach area. We then got to go in the water or skipped rocks, whatever we wanted to do. After this, we then had a quiet time, where we went off and found a spot that peaked our interest and observed and wrote/sketched them down. After this we hiked back to our van, and proceeded back to Gardiner. We will be attending a seminar tonight by John Halfpenny on tracking and the Yellowstone wolf genetics. I can’t wait to see what this seminar and tomorrow will bring.