YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK - Days One & Two

The move to Yellowstone was uneventful.  We were able to find a camp site in the Mammoth Hot Springs campground.  No hook-ups, so we are relying on a solar panel, generator and batteries to power our electronic gizmos.  The best part about this location is that it is only five miles from Gardner, Montana and we have decent Internet coverage.

The road from Mammoth to Tower General Store is well known for plentiful black bears.  Our first sighting was of two cubs in the top of a tall pine tree several hundred yards from the road...

Here is a view at 900 mm magnification in case you didn't see them in the first photo...

There were several adults and yearlings grazing on the tender grass near the road...

On our first morning we were up at 5:30, but we still felt setting the alarm for an earlier wake-up time would help us be in position for the best light of the
morning.

We explored the Lamar Valley and discovered a coyote den not far from the road...

Another photographer told us that the den originally held five pups but that wolves had killed four of them. As we waited, the pup must have become hungry or lonesome because it emerged from the den and did its best to produce a howl...

One of the adults arrived to comfort or feed the pup...

That evening we drove the old stagecoach road from Fort Yellowstone to Gardner.  It is a dirt road only wide enough for one vehicle and receives light traffic.

 We spotted a very young elk calf wobbling through the sage brush, probably looking for its mother...

It finally laid down to wait for the mother to find it...

As we were making the descent to Gardner we saw our first white-tailed jackrabbit.  These hares can grow to almost 10 pounds and I believe this one was approaching that size...

As we approached the end of the end of the stage coach road two mule deer yearlings crossed the road...

As we headed up the Gardner Canyon a nice pronghorn buck was resting about 100 yards from the road...

The road up the canyon follows the Gardner River and there we spotted an adult elk in a lovely setting...

I'm not sure she enjoyed having her photo taken...

This morning we were up at 5:00 and heading for Swan Lake Flats...

We were hoping to see a celebrity grizzly called Quad-Mom, so named because in 2012 she had four cubs. This year she has two cubs...

We located her only because we saw a red Toyota Tundra quickly pull over and two individuals jumped out setting up video gear.  We parked beside the Tundra and were surprised to see that the driver was non other than Casey Anderson well known National Geographic producer and wildlife photographer...

Quad-Mom dug for roots, grubs and insects for some time as the crowd of photographers swelled...

She barely bothered to look up when a tasty elk passed a short distance away...

Quad-Mom displays some frightful scars, no doubt the results of disputes with other grizzlies...

An encouraging beginning to our seventh visit to the nations first national park.

Thanks for visiting, be well, and remember that a photograph not shared is a photograph wasted.