Today was day 3 and our final day with Shauna. Not long after she picked us up and left the motel we got to see a big bull elk standing out in the grass bugling at another young bull and all of his cows that were feeding around him. We sat on the side of the road and listened and took pictures and videos for a while. After visiting the elk we made a pit stop for the restrooms and at that time Shauna got a radio call about a wolf sighting so we be-lined it to Lamar valley.
Soon as we got to the valley we spotted about 8 wolves out of the pack just as they were heading over the ridge. As soon as we lost the last wolf over the ridge we packed up the scopes and started hauling butt over to the next pull off where we thought we could get a better view of them. Right as we pulled into the pull off we could see them without our binoculars as they were on the move. it is here where we were able to count 11 of the 14 wolves out of the Prospect Peak pack. Once they went over the ridge again and we lost them we packed up and went over the next hill to watch them start coming out and here is where they bedded down for the day.
When we were done watching the wolves we stood around Rick McIntyre to listen about a couple of stories that he was willing to share about the experiences he has witnessed while admiring wolves. He talked to us about Cinderella wolf and how she made a comeback to be the dominant wolf after kicking her sister out after she started to kill her puppies.
From here we made our hike to the back country! It wasn’t long after we left the the road that we witnessed our first kill sight of many. We made a long hike out to reach the river where we scanned for tracks from a grizzly bear. We were unsuccessful with our grizzly tracks but the more we hiked on the more we found kill sights and many sheds of elk. You can tell you are with a bunch of wildlife majors when we stop to look at every white object we see to make sure it isn’t a shed. At every shed or skull we found we made sure to stop and take pictures. While eating lunch we even git the chance to see a couple of coyotes feeding on an old carcass on the rivers edge. Once we had lunch we started hiking back to the van to call it a day and majority of the class went and sat in the Boiling river to relax a little after about a 7 mile hike.