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.