It was an early rise morning, pack the sandwiches, eat my cereal and yogurt and off to meet the van.  We drove to Hayden Valley to look for the Wapiti Wolf pack but they were on round about.  It looks like we might miss seeing the pack.  Talked to a wolf watcher who was sure he had spotted a wolverine….I was and still am a little skeptical.  Unfortunately he did not have time to get a picture.  I had Mike check out if he might be legit, Mike thought he was.  So that means we came within minutes of potentially seeing the rarely seen wolverine.  Timing timing timing.

We packed up the scopes and headed down to lake.  It was blustery but we decided to head out on the Storm Point trail.  The snow was coming down and it was great walking in the old forest growth.  The creaking of the trees and logs created a great 3 mile hike.  Found various evidence of mammals:  mountain cat scat, grizzly scat, scratches on trees by bears and rubbings by deer and elk.  Then we came to Lake Yellowstone….one of the largest fresh water lake’s at a high altitude.    Also the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. Yes that Yellowstone that flows all the way to ND.  We learned about the invasive lake trout which are eating the native cutthroat trout…..another complex issue to add to the complexity of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

The snow continued.  We stopped at Fishing Bridge where we were informed that the road from Canyon to Norris was closed (blocking our way back) so we had to take the road to Old Faithful to get back to Gardiner.  This road makes us cross the Continental Divide twice.  We had time to hike along the fountain paint pots and see the four types of geothermal activity:   geysers, mudpots, hot springs, and fumaroles.

We had a short stop looking for pika an animal that is considered important as an indicator of climate change.  They cannot withstand temperatures over 79.5 degrees.  What you look for are the haystacks they gather for the winter, scat, and if you are really lucky you may hear their little squeal.  Now if it gets to warm they have to move up to higher altitudes.  That may sound like a good solution but when they move upward they lose those grasses for their haystacks which they feed on over winter. The students found their scat and haystacks but not actually seeing the rabbit like animal.  The pika in Yellowstone are doing okay but in other areas of Colorado and New Mexico their population numbers are drastically decreasing.

We got back to the hotel and most of the students went off to grab something to eat and shop.  I got a phone call from Ashea (wife of the climate change expert) and she informed me that Jim HalfPenny a world known tracker was having naturalists and photographers show nature pictures in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.  The students were eating and working on schoolwork so I went and had a great experience meeting locals and seeing their fantastic photographic slide shows.  Alice our administrative assistant in the Science Department at VCSU would have loved this presentation and could have easily shown some of her excellent photos. The most memorable were beautiful pictures of the Milky Way and Night Sky throughout Yellowstone from tops of mountains.  I could look at them all day. There was even someone from the United Kingdom who had won some awards for her pictures.   Tomorrow we will go to one of my favorite places in the park—The Lamar Valley.  Where we should see herds of bison, elk, antelope,  some grizzlies and I am keeping my fingers crossed—WOLVES!