Day 11: Yellowstone (wildlife and waterfalls)

For our last day at Yellowstone we got up at 6:00 and drove to Hayden Valley, a good wildlife watching place.  Here are some of the animals we saw there:

We saw a whole lot of bison.  They feed around the geysers and hot springs because the grass there grows all year round.

This herd had a lot of calves in it.

We drove past a huge lake and the mountains all had snow on them.

We saw most of the wildlife in the early morning but we spotted this gray wolf about 10:30.

We saw about 25 elk in all; these 3 bulls were on the side of the road.

We all really wanted to see a grizzly and we saw this she bear and cub about 6:30 a.m.  They were the first wildlife on our early morning drive.

This black bear was digging about 30 yards from the road.

The rangers said to stay 100 yards from bears and wolves and 25 yards from all other wildlife, but a lot of animals were much closer than that.

This bison was so close that we had to stop to let it walk.

We drove behind a Yellowstone tour bus for a while.

Hayden Valley

Hayden Valley was full of bison--at least 200.  Here are a few of the bison we saw there.

After a late breakfast/lunch (at 1:00 because we were out so long) we saw Tower Falls.

Mommy and James with the falls behind them.

George IV