We ventured off to Hayden Valley at 6:00AM this morning. It was cold and blustery for much of the day, with lots of wind and some snowfall. When we got to Hayden Valley, there were some wolf watchers who had beaten us to the area. It was quiet, and not much was happening. We all decided to go up on top of a hill behind the lookout area to set up the spotting scopes to scan for any signs of life. Atop this hill, the wind was chilling everyone to the bone. Off in the distance, we could see the snowfall rolling in on top of a mountain. After dissecting the landscape, we only seemed to find a couple lone bison and an elk. Since there wasn’t much activity, we decided to go back to the bus to have a little breakfast accompanied by cider, coffee, and hot chocolate. While we were enjoying the heat in the bus, we noticed some commotion amongst the wolf watchers atop a nearby hill. Everyone was curious, so Dr. Ketterling graciously volunteered to go check out what was happening while we waited. About five minutes later, he came back and gave us some interesting news – they spotted a wolverine! Apparently, a wolverine had never been spotted in the area previously, and our tour guide, Mike, was skeptical. Mike was indifferent and had to do his own investigating. It turns out that the man who spotted the wolverine for a short moment is an avid wolf watcher, and probably did see the animal. We stuck around for a while longer, hoping to see just a glimpse. Unfortunately, there was not much activity after that and everyone cleared out of the area.
The next stop for the day was Yellowstone Lake. By this time, the wind had picked up even more, and the snowfall had increased. At first, we were skeptical to go out hiking near the lake due to the weather exposure we would receive. Finally, we decided to go for it and we were glad we did! It was a three-mile loop hike that took us through lodgepole pine and spruce forest, and then eventually to Yellowstone Lake’s shoreline. The lake has 130 miles of shoreline and is over 300 feet deep in some areas! Lake trout and cutthroat trout can be found here, but the park is making efforts to eradicate the lake trout due to its predation on the cutthroat. Along the trail we found many animal signs such as bear, mountain lion, and red squirrel. Even though the weather was chilly, it was a great time! Our hike came to an end, and we headed off to Fishing Bridge to have lunch around noon. When we were eating, a man came up and asked our tour guide how he could get back into Gardiner from Fishing Bridge. Mike was puzzled with this question, as he just told the man to take the road he came in on – but it turned out the road closed due to the weather! Some of our plans of hiking were cancelled since we had to go all the way around near Old Faithful. We drove through a majority of the park today. Whilst cruising by the geyser basin, we decided to visit the Fountain Paint Pots. We got to see a few different geothermal phenomena here.
Our last spot we visited today was the hoodoos. This is an area of rocks that come out of the mountain. This was a great area to look for pika. We crawled around the area for a while looking for them but were unsuccessful. We had a 20-minute drive back to Gardiner, and that ended our day! I am hoping that tomorrow is a little warmer – keep your fingers crossed!