Wild Memories Photography Tours

Well, it has been quite an interesting few days, to say the least.  Temporary lifestyle changes, cute bear cubs and massive numbers of park visitors.

Park visitation is up 25% right now.  That is 25% of 4 million plus visitors yearly!  Yeah, you can do the math.  Quite honestly, the park does not have the infrastructure to handle these crowds, from parking, restrooms, motels, campsites (Grant campground is still closed!), parking and personnel.  I must say, though, that so far the rangers have been upbeat and professional, despite the challenges.

And, they are giving out tickets – to visitors, not just those of us who are here everyday and so should know better, but across the board with fairness and concern for safety.  Yep, it is unsafe to get 10 yards from a bear and a slap on the hand doesn’t do much to persuade folks to keep their distance.  So, at least in the Canyon area people are getting tickets for approaching wildlife and for obstructing traffic.  It is illegal to sit in the road and take photos of wildlife, while 100 people are waiting behind you to have their own vacation.  I happen to think that blocking the road is the rudest of all behaviors – just selfish and unreasonable.  When it takes 2 hours to go five miles, there is a problem.

And, so just getting a campsite is an ordeal.  I knew which site I wanted at Slough Creek (usually stay at Pebble but that darned host is always trying to talk me into leaving and going to another campground so I thought it best to save the aggravation this year) and so was keeping an eye out.  Finally, it looked like I could get in and so I rushed home to pack.  Well, getting the house ready for the landlord and packing for camping is a huge undertaking.  I finished at 1 a.m. and laid down to rest for a couple of hours.  Except that I awoke too late to make it to Slough in time.  This morning the sites were filled by 5 a.m.  Well, it turned out that the site did not rent right away but that meant a 2 a.m. trip to the campground to reserve it the next night.  Finally in, set up and very happy to be there.

Except that right now I am at Washburn, hoping for auroras and a better WiFi signal.

In the meantime, I got word that Simon found Raspberry!  That was his main mission, after finding Scarface, so he hit pay dirt on day 2 or 3.  So, I went down south to see the new mom and her precious cubs and got a nice little show.  One of the best grizzly bear sightings ever – small, quiet and happy crowd and cute cubs.

Need I say more about how adorable the family is?

At one point, while waiting for Raspberry to come up the hill, we got to spend some time with the Blue Grouse in the wildflowers.  The evening light came on and made for some nice shooting.

Back over on the north side and closer to the campground, I found the cutest little pronghorn fawn.

And, it had been a while since I had gotten to see the cute little red cubs of the Picnic sow but they were close to the road with about 100 of their favorite friends around them.  I would love to get a chance to see this family in peace and just watch them go about their business.

Wolf happenings have been kind of hard these days.  A lot of watchers out and about and very tough to get information, for some odd reason.  Well, and hard to get close to the wolf areas due to traffic and lack of parking..  I have seen all seven Lamar adults recently and am still keeping my fingers crossed that pups are doing well.  Not a lot of drama with the family – the boys keep getting stuck on the other side of the road but everyone seems to be settling in to their new life together.

911 was by himself for a couple of days and I had begun to worry that he had gotten the boot from the pack but he was back with them in Lamar yesterday and harassing bison.

Scarface has been seen quite a lot and the main comment I hear is that he seems confused.  Can’t say that I disagree with that observation.  He found an already injured bison calf – probably due to a wolf attempt – that had been left to die.  He tossed it around quite a lot before finishing the job and then went off and left it until the next morning.  Funny that he didn’t eat it right then.  And, boy has he been wandering!

I have heard that Blaze is being seen but have not seen her.

Hayden Valley Girl is looking good and doing her same routine.  We watched her for a couple of hours today and I saw her near the road this evening.  She is good for giving many a visitor a view of a grizzly, though it would be better if they would keep their distance, not block her from crossing and pull off the road instead of stopping everyone else from continuing on.

The best news is the Wapiti Lake pack.  They have 4 pups, 2 black and 2 grey, and they are being seen more and more.  Go 755!

So, busy days in Yellowstone.