Why I Love Yellowstone

There are plenty of reasons to love Yellowstone National Park. Too many to list, actually. But right at the top is that there is so much wilderness there between the Park roads that there is a ridiculous amount of wildlife. Specifically, there is tons of unspoiled habitat for megafauna. You know...the big stuff. Big herbivores and big predators.

Someday I'll go back. Not in 2015. We're going to Glacier in 2015. But maybe in 2016. We'll see.

You have to love this place. Carole and Andy and I were walking back to our room and what's in the parking lot eating greens? A giant bison. We gave him a wide berth.

Part of the giant elk herd that got between me and my family as we were hiking back to Mammoth Hot Springs. We had to wait for it to pass before we could link up.

I took this photo of this griz from a VERY great distance. This is a digitally enlarged image taken with my most powerful telephoto lens. This bear had dug a bed for itself in the bank of the Lamar River and was completely sacked out. Why wouldn't he be comfortable? Who's going to mess with him?

Actually in the area between Grand Teton and Yellowstone. A bull moose.

 

Again...this was just outside Yellowstone. This was the only black bear we saw in the Yellowstone/Teton area. It is, as you can see, a brown phase black bear. I wasn't as close as this photo makes it appear. He was feeding heavily on something low to the ground as he walked along. I never saw what it was and he never once lifted his head. He was just vacuuming whatever goodies were growing there.

Bison in a dust wallow. Hayden Valley.

And it's not just the animals. A boiling hot lake, ladies and gentlemen. A. Boiling. Hot. Lake. Give me a break.