We got up at 5:30. It was overcast and cold. Deb made coffee and started unpacking the bags. I unpacked the boxes that we shipped and put the tripods together. Deb packed our bags for our planned trip into the interior for later in the week. We saw Doug Dance packing his Jeep so Deb called to him from our window. He came over and we had a short chat. He told us they were collaring the wolves so sightings were few and far between. I went out to talk to John while Deb finished unpacking and getting things ready to go to the park. We usually do all of this the day we arrive, but due to the problems we encountered yesterday, we did it today. We had breakfast, took our showers and packed the car.

We left for the park around 11:00. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items that we did not get yesterday. Finally we are on our way to the park . . . or are we? We decided to go out the Old Yellowstone Trail before going into the park. I know this is part of Yellowstone, but I do not consider it part of the park as you do not need a pass to go here. Deb commented on the wall-to-wall bison patties in the Gardiner football field. She said it was a good thing football season was over. We saw several small herds of bison and a couple of herds of pronghorns. We turned around and headed for the park. From this direction, we noticed a third herd of pronghorn. That made a total of about 50, 30 in the largest herd and about 10 in each of the smaller ones.

We finally got to the park and when we went through the arch, we saw three more pronghorn. A small bison herd loafed near the Xanterra complex. In fact, small herds of bison dotted the landscape all the way up to Mammoth. We did not see any sheep on McMinn Bench but did see our first elk. It started to snow and was snowing rather heavy by the time we got to Mammoth. The roads were snow covered from the campground on.

We saw a few small herds of bison between Mammoth and Wraith Falls, but no elk. The bull elk at Wraith Falls were in hiding. There were small herds of bison all the way to Tower Junction and a large herd of elk at Tower Junction.

Xanterra has started to groom the ski trails around Mammoth, Tower Junction and Old Faithful. We saw a large Xanterra bus parked at the Tower ski trail head and assumed they had taken a large group up the trail.

Driving toward Little America, we noticed that the sulfur smell was very strong at the Yellowstone River Bridge. We saw a few small herds of bison as we drove through Little America. Stopping at Slough Creek, all we could see were some sleeping wolf dots. We decided to push on and return to Slough later during the day.

We continued on to the Lamar Valley. The Lamar River Canyon was almost completely frozen over with just small open areas of water. Seeing a lot more snow on the ground than in the past few years was especially heartening. There were numerous small herds of bison and elk, but no large herds. We encountered a small coyote jam just past the Buffalo Ranch. It was only three cars, but the coyote was on the road and we could not get past. After the jam broke up and the coyote left, we headed to the Confluence and had our lunch.

We noticed a number of cars at the next pullout so after we finished lunch we went to check it out. They were watching another coyote. We did not stay and continued driving towards Round Prairie. We met Doug Dance just past the Soda Butte Cone. He said his highpoint for the day was seeing a belted kingfisher. There was not much going on in the valley. He said there were a lot of animals at Round Prairie, mostly bison, but he saw a moose there yesterday. We told him about the coyotes.

We continued on to Round Prairie and watched the bison for a while. We then went to Barronette Peak to see whether we could see any goats. It was snowing so not much was visible. We did see a lot of frozen waterfalls – some were blue while others were yellow or white. We turned around and headed back towards Slough Creek. We met Doug Dance again and he told us things were looking up. He was watching a few coyotes at the Buffalo Ranch pullout. One was mousing and he watched for a while. We told him we would see him at the Loonion tonight and headed on. We stopped at the Buffalo Ranch and watched the coyotes for a while. They had moved out but one was still mousing. He stopped by the time I set up the large lens.

We stopped at Slough Creek and noticed that the wolves were starting to move. We saw a total of nine wolves in two groups. A group of four was still resting while the second group of five was moving around. One wolf was going between the groups. Doug Dance pulled up and we talked while watching the wolves. We decided to head back to the room so we could change before the Loonion. Then Ballpark Frank pulled into the parking lot and Roadie came a little later. We talked about our experiences for a while but then the parking lot started to fill up so we left while we could still get out.

Two coyotes ran across the road at the Black Tail Plateau exit. They were really nice and were not beggars. They did not stop when they saw us. We saw one bull elk in the woods between Undine Falls and the Gardner River Bridge. We did not see any sheep at McMinn Bench so we went back to the room to change. John stopped by while we were in the room and told us he had a bottle of champagne that Rene and Helene had left. We decided that we would come back to the hotel after the Loonion and have the champagne.

We went to Outlaw’s at 6:00 for the Loonion. John and Carlene and Rachel and a friend were there, as well as Frank Wombacher. Doug Dance, Ballpark Frank and Roadie came later. We finished our dinner and returned to the hotel for champagne. Ballpark Frank and Roadie had a long drive home so they passed on this. The rest of us spent a couple of hours exchanging experiences and giving our solutions to the problems of the world. The group broke up at about 10:30 and we retired to our rooms.

It was a great day in Yellowstone. We saw lots of bison and elk as well as coyotes, pronghorn and wolves. We also saw lots of dippers, golden eyes, ravens and magpies. We met a lot of new and old friends.