We got up, took our showers and made breakfast. After breakfast we reorganized our bags and packs. It was warm today so we packed accordingly. There were some light wispy clouds in the sky. The mountains across from the hotel room glowed with the rising sun. We stopped packing and just watched the sunrise. An eagle was circling over the Yellowstone River right outside of our window. Maybe this would be a good omen. It was so warm that we decided to wear our hiking boots rather than our winter boots.

We headed into the park. We always go through the Roosevelt Arch when going into Yellowstone from this entrance. There was a fairly large number of elk in the meadow between the Arch and the park entrance. Several were on the road. We waited for them to pass before proceeding to the entrance station. The ranger asked whether we would be interested in some of the older literature. We said we would, so she gave us pamphlets on the fires of 1988, the introduction of wolves and the history of the Roosevelt Arch.

There was a bald eagle in a tree near the Gardner River near McMinn Bench. We stopped to take some pictures. We continued on towards Mammoth. We did not see any sheep and only a few elk. There was less snow on Mt. Everts that before. The only snow was on the north facing ridges.

We continued on towards the Lamar Valley. The roads were clear of any snow. Even the areas in the shade had no snow or ice. We did not see any elk until we approached Blacktail Ponds. There were a lot of bison near Blacktail Ponds. The sun was up and it was getting very warn in the car. We turned the heater off and Deb said that we might have to use the air conditioner.

It was very quiet in Little America. All of the pullouts were empty. We continued into the Lamar Valley. A number of bison herds were scattered throughout the valley and the elk were high on the ridges. It was very quiet in the valley. It seemed like everyone had left the park. We saw a coyote in the road right before the Buffalo Ranch. We passed a large tour (four Karst vans) right after the Buffalo Ranch. We stopped at the confluence to look for the beaver or otters. The only things we saw were a couple of ouzels. Even the bighorn rams had deserted the area.

The Karst tour passed us while we were parked at the confluence. They went down to the Hitching Post. A lot of people were looking at something across the road from the Hitching Post. We thought they may have been looking at sheep. Since the parking lot was full we did not stop. We continued on to Barronette Peak. The roads were clear all the way to Barronette Peak.

We stopped to look for goats. There was a car in the parking area. It was Vincent and his wife. We chatted for a while and soon were joined by Ranger Mike Ross. We did not see any goats. Vincent and his wife went to Cooke City for lunch. Ranger Ross went home for lunch. Deb and I headed back towards the confluence.

We stopped at the Hitching Post. Most of the people had left. We saw a golden eagle across the road and we took some pictures. The bighorn rams were just down the road. We took some pictures of them. This was the group that is normally found at the confluence. Deb took a few pictures of the ram that had been hit a few years ago.

We stopped at the confluence and had a couple of bagels for lunch. The ice was breaking up on the Soda Butte Creek. There was a lot of ice floating in the water. We continued on into the Lamar. There were bison in the road before we reached the Buffalo Ranch. After we got by them we continued on to Dorothy’s Knoll.

We stopped at Dorothy’s Knoll. Two black and two gray wolves were on the ridge above the Amethyst Creek Drainage. They went over the ridge and were no longer visible. We waited for about an hour for them to appear again. We saw several coyotes and we heard a lot of yipping and howling. Rick showed up and said the wolves were the U-Black group. He said the Slough Creek pack was in the Amethyst Creek Drainage as well. He scanned for signals and got weak signals from both groups.

We left Dorothy’s knoll and continued on towards Mammoth. We stopped at the Children’s Fire Trail as there were reports that the Leopold pack had been sighted in the area. We did not see any wolves but the cloud formations were very striking. We took some pictures and then continued on towards Mammoth. We saw several large bison herds in every direction.

There were several large bull elk in the area between Blacktail Ponds and Wraith Falls. One bull was in the road and did not show any inclination to move. When he did move it was in the direction of our car. He looked like he was going to sniff the hood but he moved to the drivers side. He passed no more than 6 inches from the car. Deb took some pictures of elk along the road.

We continued towards Mammoth. While we were going down the hill towards Mammoth we encountered some bison in the road coming up the hill. We stopped and let them pass. They just looked at us and continued on. Most of the snow on Mt. Everts had melted during the day. Snow covers only about 10 percent of the mountain.

We stopped at the grocery store before we went to the hotel. We met Carlene and chatted a bit. When we got to the hotel Deb did some laundry while I off-loaded the camera. We made supper and then called it a day.