Yellowstone National Park 2015 Trip Reports
Trip Report ~ Bear & Wolf Sightings ~ by Bill Hamblin
03 through 06 May 2015
~ May 2015 ~
Sunday - 03 May
32 degrees this morning warming up to 64 degrees. I hiked Trout and Buck Lakes today with John G, Randi, Wayne K, and Ed A. At 6:10 a.m. 965M, Twin, Mottled, and a black male of the Prospect Peak Pack (originally) now hanging around the alpha female 926F of the Lamar Canyon Pack. They were south and west of the Footbridge pullout in the sagebrush howling and wandering around. At 6:30 a.m. Randi found a grizzly heading south in the river corridor from Footbridge Pullout and later it crossed within sight of the four wolves. At 7:00 a.m. I spotted a large dark brown black bear high and east in the Salad Bowl. At 8:00 a.m. the courting pair of grizzlies were in Crystal Drainage moving up later to Specimen Ridge. Others observed them running downhill and out of sight, apparently detecting hikers on the Specimen Ridge Trail. At 10:00 a.m. we had the small blond grizzly in the aspens south of Midpoint. The blond was out again this afternoon moving to Amethyst Bench. At 3:30 a.m. I spent some time just east of the Yellowstone Picnic Area watching the black bear sow with two brown cubs of the year (coy's), one is lighter than the other. They were close, less that 100 yards but John K and Ed were policing the crowd and traffic. At 4:30 p.m. we had a dark grizzly in A-Z Meadow was digging for over an hour. At 5:30 p.m. I had a brief sighting of a grizzly on the west end of Jasper Bench.
Monday - 04 May
28 degrees this morning warming to a high of 66. Some rain and a lot of wind clearing to a pleasant afternoon. I hiked the Yellowstone Picnic Trail today with John G, John B, and Randi. We had two marmots and a least three active osprey nests on the west side of the Yellowstone Canyon. Later at Slough Creek I had a Canada goose with five goslings cross the road from south to north, not sure where she was going, a long ways down to Slough Creek and the Lamar River from there. At 5:50 a.m. I spotted a grizzly south and west of Coyote Overlook near the sky line. At 6:20 a.m. a small dark grizzly was spotted by John G high in the Salad Bowl. At 6:55 a.m. I had a brief sighting of a small grizzly going over the sky line south of the Institute. At 7:10 a.m. another brief sighting, this time on K Meadow and it was a large dark grizzly. At 8:30 a.m. John B found a black bear feeding near the mixed conifer/aspen forest in Slough Creek. At 10:30 a.m. while hiking the Yellowstone Picnic Trail we spotted the black bear sow with the two brown cubs. Mom was on the ground and the cubs were in the top of a tree. She had to go all the way up to encourage them to come down (later she would just call them to return down the tree). At 11:30 a.m. we spotted a large black bear grazing on grass across the Yellowstone River, viewed from the east side of the river. At 4:15 p.m. we had the blond grizzly in the tree line south of Picnic Area. At 6:00 p.m. I spotted a light colored grizzly high in the Salad Bowl. At 6:30 a.m. looking above Coyote Overlook from way west at Long Pullout we watched two separate grizzlies feeding in a clearing. The larger one disappeared into the tree line but reappeared and chased the other grizzly off. Soon after that we noticed a third grizzly in a clearing below the first two grizzlies. At 6:55 p.m. I found a black bear and two black yearling cubs in the trees in Little America (Wayne K had found them several days ago, but this was the first time I had seen them).
Tuesday - 05 May
33 degrees this morning warming to a pleasant 64 degrees. I hiked the Slough Creek road today down to the bathroom at the trail head with John G, John B and Randi. Note: they opened the road down to Bob's Knob just after we finished the hike. At 5:45 a.m. I spotted a grizzly digging on Amethyst Bench south of the Institute viewed from Coyote Overlook. At 6:30 a.m. I found a black bear in the trees south of Coyote Overlook. At 7:10 a.m. we had two sub adult grizzlies high on Ski Slope. These bears never got more than 10 yards apart. At 7:45 a.m. we watched a large black bear in the top east part of Salad Bowl. At 10:00 a.m. the courting pair of grizzlies were almost on the skyline just east of Specimen. The sow was bedded most of the time in the snow while the boar stayed mainly in the bare ground near the trees. These grizzlies could be seen from Boulder Pullout all the way to Slough Creek. At 12:30 a.m. the black bear (without cubs in sight--this was the black sow with the two brown cubs) was feeding three feet off the road east of Yellowstone Picnic area. The rangers let her feed for 10 minutes or more before chasing her away as the traffic was building. At 3:30 a.m. we had a black sow with one black cub of the year on Tower Hill. At 4:00 p.m. we watched the black bear with two black yearling cubs south of Peregrine Pullout.
Wednesday - 06 May
42 degrees and windy with rain showers this morning, but heating up to 57 degrees but still windy. We all thought with the cloud cover it was going to be a banner day for watching grizzlies. Not so. At 8:35 a.m. I found a courting pair of black bears (black and black) in a clearing below No Bear Meadow from the Institute. At 10:00 a.m. we had the courting pair of grizzlies near old #9's den south in Little America (for a long time we assumed it was a sow with a yearling cub). They were in view only a small portion of the time digging and were just out of sight most of the time. Around 11:00 a.m. the boar stood up and bolted for the trees. Soon the sow, temporally out of sight, was seen bolting for the trees with a gray un-collared wolf giving chase. The chase was brief, but soon a black collared wolf appeared. They traveled slowly west disappearing in the Crystal Drainage 40 minutes later. The wolf people could not identify the wolves, since 890M the only regular black of the Junction Butte Pack has a GPS collar, the one we saw did not. At 10:30 a.m. we watched two bears far away on Prospect Peak viewed from Little America. We all looked long and hard to identify, but were never quite sure. I recorded them as black bears, but not sure. At 5:30 p.m. the black sow with the three all black cubs from the Calcite area were under the Yellowstone River Bridge.
People Seen
Wolf Watchers: From Montana: Rick M, Doug M, Melba and Lish. From Kansas: Calvin and Lynette. From Iowa: Jim and Joellen B. From Colorado: Anne W. From Utah: Richard B and CD. From California: Bob and Nell. From Idaho: Rick E. Bear Watchers: From Colorado: Ed A, From Washington: John G, John B, and Randi. From Montana: Mike and Kathy W, Ralph N, and Jack G. From Illinois: Wayne K. From Ohio: Jim and Tywla E. From Indiana: Jeff and Terri. From Utah: Dean and Jeri D, and from Missouri: Fred and Linda. Others: From Montana: Cliff B, Deby D, Dan and Cindy H, John K, Ed, Pete B, Nathan V, MacNeil L, and Jim H. From Florida: Rick. From Wyoming: Amy. From Oregon Dale and Elva P. and from Utah: Bob B.
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