Cold and early start today to make the most of our chances. Drove off in the swirling snow at 06.30 at the first sign of dawn with the thermometer reading just 2 Fahrenheit, that’s 30 below freezing! Tucked in to my cold packed breakfast straight away as we drove for about an hour back up to the Lamar Valley to start our backwardsing and forwardsing again looking for the wolves.
What a difference a day makes. After our disappointment of yesterday, today we followed several wolves and has lots of sightings starting with one just yards away from the roadside, a beautiful grey wolf loping along and away up the hillside. He was part of a known pack and for the next few hours we were really privileged to see him again and at least 4 others from the pack at different points along the valley.
The convention is that we should never be closer than 100 yards from a wolf and most wolf sightings are at long distance through scopes. Today, we saw our wolves through scopes and just 50-60 yards away from the roadside, quite spectacular!Of course, we saw bison, elk, coyote and big-horn sheep too, with one family walking right past us in a lay-by and then on the way back in the afternoon, a female moose with calf.
Not much in the way of bird life apart from the usual Ravens, but we did see some chickadees, a bit like larger coal tits, feeding in the larch trees at one stop.We didn’t just jump in and out of the bus today, either – this afternoon, we walked out on snowshoes for about 3 miles up to the area where the first wolves had been released in 1995. Magnificent views and complete solitude with almost cloudless blue skies. A quite perfect day…
