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June 2003
Yellowstone Wilderness and Wildlife
David Aaronson2005-09-29 12:08:02
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We entered Yellowstone at the South Entrance. The southern section of the park is mostly wilderness that is best seen on foot. There are a tremendous number of waterfalls in this part of the park, only a few of which can be seen from the road. This is a relatively calm section of the Lewis River (1) - we're saving the waterfall pictures for the Canyon area farther down the page.
Bison and elk are everywhere in the park, by which we mean everywhere. We saw elk wandering through the town of Mammoth Hot Springs, and bison standing in parking lots and even one that appeared to be waiting to use the restroom. In the winter they're especially fond of the geothermally heated geyser basins. This herd was just outside of the Lower Geyser Basin (2). Speaking of which, here's our supposedly obvious fundamental rule of Yellowstone's wildlife: It's dangerous, do not touch. This is not nearly as obvious as you'd think, we saw several people posing with bison for pictures, one man filming himself touching the antlers of a large elk, and another hiker told us he'd seen a family arranging themselves in front of a grizzly bear for a group photo. Natural selection did not choose to take a role in any of these occurrences but it's amazing the wildlife injury total isn't higher.
This coyote came down a hill to take a swim in the Gibbon River (3). Afterwards he stood on this log surveying the area for a bit before disappearing back over the hill. Coyote are fairly common in the park but are not seen by visitors as often as bison, elk and bears. Wolves are perhaps the most elusive large mammals in the park, we spent a fair amount of time in Lamar Valley looking for them but never spotted any.
Our campsite was in the Canyon area which, if a bit chaotic, was not a bad place to camp. A general store with a couple restaurants is located just across the main road. We later learned that all of
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See photographs from:
United States Gallery
