Trout Lake

This day was our last to be able to get into the park this year. The work load our last week was pretty tough so no more time to drive around after this.

We still had not seen a bear or a wolf and inquired where the wolves were hanging around and decided to try Lamar Valley. On the drive in, these mule deer were grazing along the side of the road.





This looked like a mother-daughter pair. They usually aren't quite this tame, this close, but these two weren't worried about the cars and much more concerned about getting to the grass that was close to the street.






When you are driving down the road and see a crowd like this, you can be sure there is bear or wolves being watched...from very far away.

 It is common practice to just roll down the window and ask "what's out there?"

We lucked out! A wolf was trotting through the sage up and down the ravines up the hill.




A picture that show these guys are hard to come by but Bob was able to get these pictures of a black wolf. At one point he stopped and starting howling. He was obviously trying to locate his pack. I've blown them up so if you view it full screen you can see it is definitely a wolf.





 We couldn't find out his identity (they all have numbers and are identified to belong in a pack). He was down by Lamar Buffalo Ranch and was probably from the Soda Butte Pack.









Here is just a Fall shot of the Lamar River with Dog's Bane along the shore.

And this is the Gardiner River back toward Gardiner. I guess this should have been first, but I'm not going back now, ha!

This was just a cool shot Bob got of a guy in the Lamar River that apparently had a problem with his fly rod. Oh to be so immersed in your hobby that the world passes you by while you concentrate on fixing a problem!







We wound up driving almost to the back gate toward Cooke City and decided to do a small hike up to Trout Lake. Bob had gone with his photography course last year but we went together now.









As usual, it was a very windy day. September was windy most of the time! I loved this wind-swept cirrus cloud. To my it looks like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars :)










 Here we are at Trout Lake. It is one of those areas where the water collects from a stream in the mountains. You just don't expect to run into it up this high.








The hike around was only a little more than a mile, but so serene and scenic.











You can see the trail from this picture. This was where we started and Bob took this at the end.











So many trees throughout the park was killed in the 1988 fire. There were more in this area. This beautiful, old tree is still standing and completely dead. Look how large it is! It made us think of the Redwood Trees in CA.

Paul came to visit!

Paul Trombetta lives in Bozeman so is able to make the trip each year to come and visit when we come out here. Paul and Bob go back to age 5 growing up and he was the Best Man in our wedding 46 yrs ago. So we enjoy his visits and try to take him on a moderate hike that his knees can handle.





This year we took him on the Yellowstone Picnic hike that travels along the edge over the end of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon. I posted pictures on this hike earlier when Bob and I did it but here are some more!

The scenery is so amazing when you are higher up.






Here we are with the other side of the canyon in the background.

This big guy was all alone and walking among the sage bushes parallel to our path. That can cause a little anxiety when he looks at you like he may just wander over. This time, however, he continued down the hill to a greener patch of grass to munch on.





The hill behind me is the start of Specimen Mountain. There are at least 3 trail heads to take one up to the top, this being one of them. The trail is about 10 miles long. Bob and I have decided to tackle this next year. :)








This is looking back into the canyon area from the end of the trail. This is the Yellowstone River which travels north to the Gardiner area and up to Livingston, MT before turning east to eventually run into the Missouri River. 








We had 3 days of rain right before Paul came. It dumped water below and snow above. The Mt. Washburn peak we had just hiked was now covered in snow!

The buffalo were on the move all throughout the park. This group was trailing down into this valley and the leader had already gone halfway up the next hill. I've heard you can tell the weather by the animals, but we are really stumped about whether it will be a tough winter here or not. The animals all were going places we've never seen then in before. It will be interesting to see what happens.