Last year I started to plan a wildlife photography trip during the Elk rut in Yellowstone. I made arrangements to attend a personal photography workshop with Steve Mattheis in the Grand Tetons and booked MacNeal Lyons of Yellowstone Insight as a guide for Yellowstone. I hoped this would maximize my chances of getting good photographs.
The drive from Jackson Hole, WY to Gardiner, MT can be done in just under 4 hours. In the dark, with snow alternating with freezing rain, it took me a bit longer. I had been warned to watch carefully for Bison. Apparently, their eyes do not reflect headlights. I ran my offroad lights whenever possible. The only wildlife I saw on the drive were two mice scurrying off the road.
Gardiner, Montana is just outside the northern entrance to Yellowstone Park. This is the area where the park entrance road was destroyed by floods last year. Instead of fixing the road, the Park Service paved a parallel service road. This necessitated some jogging of the road out of Gardiner. However, I think it’s a good solution, up and over the ridge into Mammoth Hot Springs instead of along the river. Well, for at least as long as the road lasts—I was told it wasn’t built for longevity.
There are a couple of Elk herds living near the north entrance to Yellowstone. One bull keeps his harem mostly in the city park next to the Roosevelt arch. The Roosevelt arch was dedicated by Teddy Roosevelt, who just happened to be passing through as it was nearing completion. On it is engraved an excerpt from the Organic act: “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people”. I certainly took plenty of enjoyment from my visit.
At the hotel I noticed the local ungulates frequented the gardens. Mule Deer browse on shrubs.
While Elk graze on lawns.
At seven the next morning I met my guide, MacNeal Lyons, at my room in the Yellowstone River Motel. There was a regular chorus of Elk bugles echoing all around. It seems the rut was in full force. We decided this first day we would focus on capturing Elk photographs. With the ‘Town Bull’ claiming a dozen does, there was plenty of activity in town. But I wanted to see the Park.
I was not disappointed. I was able to get some real good photos of Elk bulls fighting.
These are two ‘satellite bulls’ practicing for the day they will challenge for dominance of their own harem. The young bulls hang around in small herds until they are strong enough to challenge a herd bull. Then they attach themselves to a herd and try to keep just out of range of the big bull until he is weakened. They may even get the opportunity to breed with a cow when the herd bull is distracted. They are called ‘satellite bulls’ as they kind of orbit the herd—keeping close, but not too close.
Satellite bulls ritually fight with one another to gain strength and skill in the match. Ritual fights are not as violent as will be a dominance fight. I like the idea that animals use ritual to tame the violence of their encounters. Wolves do the same. I wonder how many of our societal problems stem from the breaking of traditional rituals in western civilization.
This is one of my favorite images from the trip. I’m still playing with the composition.
Pronghorn were also in abundance.
We had many encounters with Elk during the day, but one animal that I didn’t get good photos of was the Bighorn Sheep. I did manage a few snapshots of a herd of ewes and lambs.
At lunch time we stopped in a picnic ground with an escarpment harboring a few Pikas. Pikas are relatives of rabbits about the size and shape of a Guinea Pig. In between snacks, I snapped portraits of them as they collected grass for the coming winter. Pikas don’t hibernate, they will sleep a bunch, but they need to collect enough grass to sustain themselves under the snow until spring.
The following day we focused on bears. In a valley north of the park are meadows that attract many Grizzly Bears—Tom Miner Basin. Several decades ago, Caraway (yes, the spice) became established throughout its meadows, and who would have guessed it; Grizzly Bears love Caraway root. During the fall they congregate in the basin gorging themselves on Caraway root in preparation for hibernation. This brings them into close contact with the human residents and their cattle.
The basin is mostly privately owned, with the B-Bar ranch owning a good portion of the Caraway rich fields. There is a public road through the valley that ends at a Forest Service campground—lots of bear warning signs there. We didn’t see anyone camping there. I’ll keep it in mind for a future visit.
For most of the year residents of the basin are in nearly constant contact with Grizzlies. Here a bear has just passed through this yard. It’s heading for the willows on the left.
On this day we saw 12 Grizzlies in the Tom Miner Basin. In the evening I drove other roads in the area and saw another 4 bears. That is sixteen Grizzly bears in one day!!! I certainly got my money’s worth in terms of bear count.
On our return to the park from Tom Miner basin we stopped to view a few anthromorphic sites. This wall was likely built near the end of the last ice-age when the Yellowstone River was blocked. The natives who built the wall didn’t have horses. They would not be introduced back to North America until the Spanish conquered central America. In the mean time, the natives used walls to funnel Bison together where they could be killed, or to group them together above a cliff. Then the spooked herd would jump to their deaths on the rocks below.
We stopped to view this Buffalo jump. Even into the late 19th century the natives in this region would drive herds of buffalo over the cliffs in this photo. The area is on private land so we didn’t get closer. This is another advantage of having a guide who is attuned to your desires. MacNeal picked up that I was interested in the history of the area and volunteered so much information I would have otherwise missed.
I was not aware that Magpies pick bugs and ticks from the backs of Elk; but so they do.
My last day in northern Yellowstone was the best day of my trip. I really wanted to see the Lamar Valley. When I was in graduate school, I had designed a sampling plan to test the hypothesis that anthropogenic climate change was killing the Aspen in the park. I knew that one of the plots was along the road, and if it hadn’t been removed, I wanted to see it. I also wanted to see and hear wild wolves, and the Lamar Valley is the best place in the Park to do so. I had discussed this desire with MacNeal and he suggested driving to the first pullout before dawn and waiting for the sun to rise. Another guide had reported wolf howls there at sunrise.
That night I was very excited. I packed most of my things into the truck, just to be ready. Then I set my alarm for 5 am and tried to sleep. Well, at just before 4 am the Town Bull came to my room and bugled right behind my truck. What an awesome way to start the day. The Town Herd uses the road past my room on their way to and from the river twice a day, every day.
I showered, made coffee, ate some oatmeal, and was on the road a half hour earlier than I had planned. Skies were overcast and the temperature a bit below freezing. Despite road work delays (a disadvantage of the post-tourist season), I made it to the pullout before dawn. I retrieved my thermos of coffee and sat on the front bumper of my truck to greet the first light. A jeep pulled into the same turnout, but neither occupant exited the vehicle.
Just as the first suggestions of dawn lit the clouds in the east, the chorus started. One wolf on the hill behind me, started it off. For a moment I thought it was a coyote. But then across the river in front of me another wolf howled in return. For the next half hour wolves in every direction sang to the morning sun. It was too dark to photograph so I just sipped my coffee and enjoyed one of the best mornings of my life.
I waited for half an hour after the chorus stopped, watching all the cars passing by with folks not knowing the beauty they had just missed. It was kind of sad, I hope the jeep people heard the song of the wolf that morning.
Just down the road, I came upon a crowd of folks looking off across the river. MacNeal was among them. He graciously showed me the wolf they had spotted in the far distance. I told him of my experience hearing the wolves and thanked him for the tip.
Not knowing if this would be the only wolf I was to see, I took a good deal of images, but it was just too far away. I drove on to see what other things were out and about. Further down the road there was another crowd watching wolves. I got a better shot here.
This wolf was still far away, but being black was more visible against the dried grass.
Not long after the wolves disappeared into the forest, I came across the study plot. It is a one-acre fenced enclosure designed to exclude large ungulates. This study had incontrovertibly proven that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had no role in reducing Aspen populations in Yellowstone National Park. It seemed that browsing from too large an ungulate population was suppressing the regeneration of the trees.
Aspen sprout from their roots. Large mammals, such as Deer, Elk, and Bison eat Aspen shoots. They keep the trees from growing. One evening in the late 1990’s, I was talking to the primary researcher. He had a thought that if wolves were keeping the ungulates from eating the Aspen, then it would be the first example of a trophic cascade in a terrestrial environment ever identified. I’ve always been jealous that I hadn’t made this connection myself.
A trophic cascade is the rebound of a plant or animal population when its predator is suppressed by predation. In this case, the Aspen population grows when the population of its predator, say Elk or Bison, is reduced by their predator, wolves.
Seeing the plot these many years later was awesome, but also troubling. Look at this picture, the fence line against the Aspen is still perfect. There is no Aspen growth outside the fence. Yet the wolves are there, I had just seen them. It would seem that the population reduction in the Aspen predators due to wolves is too small to let the Aspen grow, here—meaning there is no evidence of a trophic cascade. It may be there, but this plot certainly didn’t show it.
Another example of scientific over-reach? I’m not sure. This photograph was taken from a highway pullout—perhaps wolves just don’t feel comfortable hunting this close to the road. There is some evidence for this in the photograph. You can see Aspen growing outside the plot in the draw behind the back fence where wolves would not be visible from the road. It may very well be that other plots further from human activity are totally overgrown. But that investigation will have to wait for another day. I spent the rest of the day photographing Bison and Elk and just enjoying being there.
Nearly every small vista along the highway had a few Bison grazing.
In the late afternoon I departed for Cody, Wyoming. I was there to visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. After which I would return to Yellowstone.
The weather was worse the further west I drove and as I gained altitude in the Park I was driving in freezing fog. My first stop was the Yellowstone Falls overlook where the classic photographs and paintings are taken. However, the fog was so thick I couldn’t see the falls at all. Not wanting to miss seeing them, I drove around the loop to the turnout at the brink of the falls. There, as I was leaning over the wall for a photograph, I lost my bushcraft hat. Oh well, some bear will be rocking a wide-brimmed Fedora next spring.
Of course, one can’t visit Yellowstone without stopping at Old Faithful. I had no idea of when it would next erupt. But I did have cell service. Checking the NPS web site and the visitor center yielded two different times. However, since the longest was fifteen minutes away I decided to stay for the eruption. Even better, the fog had cleared and it was even pleasant out.
Since I had been out of touch most of the trip, I decided to use the great cell strength to phone home. My wife found the NPS Geyser cam and guided me into the picture by phone. What a great way to connect.
I spent the rest of the day exploring the park. Most of the tourist locations were shut for the season. But the critters were still out and about. Because the weather was deteriorating and I didn’t want to drive through snow and rain, I cut my trip short by a day. I did however, stop to look at wildflowers on the way.
This trip was wonderful! I highly recommend hiring a guide. A good guide knows the area and can give you so much more information than you get from the Park’s interpretive materials. The guides network together sharing sightings thus increasing your chances of spotting the animals you are seeking.
I can, without reservation, recommend MacNeil Lyons of Yellowstone Insight. He was very receptive to my queries and picked up on my love for history. He brought me to more than a few places of historical interest. And he allowed me the privilege of viewing the first wild wolf of the trip through his spotting scope. He is a very genuine person, give him a call for reservations.
The folks at the Yellowstone River Motel are also very genuine. I thank them heartily for their hospitality and especially for putting my room key out so that when I arrived in the middle of the night, I didn’t have to sleep in the truck. I also think this might be the first hotel room I’ve stayed in that I’ve actually welcomed the local noise. Elk bugling sounds so wild.
I had a difficult time choosing which photos to include for this post. I captured over 3000 images. I mostly stuck to images of wildlife. I was encouraged by Steve Mattheis to put together a book with the best photographs from the trip. It will serve as a marker for where my skill set was at this point in time. After this trip I will also say that it will show how fortunate I was in experiencing Yellowstone Wildlife.
One more image to close out my trip of a lifetime—it’s Raven, with a happy dance that I’ve again followed his call to adventure.
