Today started early with a long drive. We left at 6 to go all the way down to Haden valley to try and find wolves, but we only saw a couple of elk and a few bison. We got down there as the sun was just coming up, but it was cloudy all day so we couldn’t see a nice sunrise. It was cold and windy this morning, but o-well we are from ND we are used to it. We looked for wolves till 9 and then headed down to take a hike by  Yellowstone lake.  I really enjoyed the hike through the trees. On our way in we saw a old mule deer, a few canvas backs, several golden eyes, and a couple bison. Once we got to the trees we looked around and found a few new mammal signs on trees and on the trail. While in the trees we saw a little red squirrel running around with pine cones. After we got through the trees, we were at the lake, IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. The beach was nice soft sand and had nice rock points that the waves crashed. I walked up the beach a little bit before I hopped back up on the trail with the rest of the crew. We finished the loop finding a little more sign and seeing the two bison from earlier much closer. Once we got back to the bus, we learned that the road to get back was closed. So, the plans changed from going to another trail for more hiking, to go down to the lower geyser basin. On the way down there, we stopped at a gift shop for lunch and then hit the road again. This was fun, but it was a long drive. Here we saw a few geysers, hot springs, and the fountain paint pots. This stop rapped up fairly fast and we were on the road again. On our way back to Gardiner, we stopped at some pika habitat but didn’t find any, however, we did find evidence of them for mammalogy class. This was fun and lots of running around on rocks. I had a good time throwing snowballs at Josh from a hidden spot. This didn’t last long though, he found me. Once we hit mammoth hot springs there was a real nice bull elk just chilling on the lawn. When this rapped up, it was off to the hotel for the night.