We got up late again today after staying up late last night. We did not get the early start as we planned. It was cloudy with the threat of snow. Frank (Auwingwalker) stopped at the room and offered to go to Trout Lake with us, but we declined since we did not have snowshoes. The temperature was about 16. We ate breakfast and finally got on the road. It looked a lot better in the park as the sun was shining and it was warming up. We saw some bison, elk and deer before we got to McMinn Bench. We saw our first sheep of the trip on McMinn Bench. It was a ewe silhouetted on the horizon. She may have had some companions with her, but we could not be sure. We saw more elk and bison by the time we reached Mammoth. There are a lot of small herds of bison in areas that they have not used in other years. We’ve seen bison in areas that we have never seen them before.

The bull elk were still absent from the Wraith Falls area. We got into a bison jam at Black Tail Ponds. We saw our first real touron of the trip. We thought he was going to become a candidate for the Darwin Award for 2006. As the bison were passing his car, he rolled down his window and patted one of the bison. This bison did not take too well to being patted and kicked the side of the car almost getting the man. The bison gave him a great souvenir of his trip to Yellowstone. He will have to take his car to the body shop to get the dent removed and the side repainted. As we passed his car we could not help but notice that is wife was giving him h***. Where are the rangers when you need them? I guess the moral to this story is that it doesn’t pay to fool with mother bison!

We got past the bison jam and did not see anything out of the ordinary until just east of Floating Island Lake. We saw an elk carcass about 25 yards from the road. The Agates take credit for the kill. The elk was intact but covered with ravens. It seemed funny that the wolves did not eat any of it. We found out later that people probably pressured the wolves off the kill. We were hoping that the wolves would return later in the day. We continued on towards the Lamar.

We stopped at Slough Creek. The wolves were active earlier but were bedded down now. We heard about an accident that happened before we arrived at Yellowstone. A man was driving through the Lamar Canyon and the car coming towards him was driving in the middle of the road and would not yield to him. He was forced off the road and rolled to the bottom of the canyon. The car did not stop to give assistance. We can relate to this as something similar happened to us a few years ago. We were luckier than him as we were able to get back on the road with assistance from a Yellowstone Expeditions tour. We saw the spot where the accident occurred. The man was lucky to have survived.

There were a lot of bison and a few elk in the Lamar Valley. Nothing was happening at the Confluence. Where are the beavers and otters this year? We saw a Bighorn Ram opposite Hitching Post. Round Prairie was full of bison. The Druids were in the area but were staying along the tree line. They had been the target of a collaring operation and were a little skittish now.

We went up to Barronette Peak but it was snowing and you could not see anything. We left and went up to Cooke City. We met Doug Dance and traded information. He was heading back to the park while we continued on to the Sinclair Station. They were very busy so we did not get our picture taken. Gas in Gardiner is $2.24 and it is $2.70 in Cooke City. We headed back to the park.

We could not see any wolves at Round Prairie but saw two bighorn rams across from Hitching Post. We saw Doug again at the Lamar Canyon. There was no change in activity at Slough Creek. We checked out the elk carcass near Floating Island Lake but all we saw were ravens. We decided to go back and drive the Old Yellowstone Trail. We wanted to see if we could find the bison holding pens. As we passed Frog Rock and made the turn west, we noticed a car off the road in the ditch. This was surprising as the road was clear in this area. The rangers were there so we did not stop.

We saw a large bull elk at Lava Creek. A little further down the road as we started down the hill toward Mammoth, another large bull elk crossed the road in front of us. We did not see any more sheep at McMinn Bench. We left the park and headed out the Old Yellowstone Trail.

There were a few bison near the road just past the Gardiner School. We also saw a couple large herds moving out of the park. This will be bad for them as they are now being caught and sent to slaughter. We saw a few pronghorn after we passed the corrals. Further down the road we came to the main herd of pronghorn. We counted 80 but missed quite a few. After we left the park and entered the Royal Teton Ranch there were deer everywhere as far as you could see. There must have been hundreds of them. They were on both sides of the road.

We left the Old Yellowstone Trail and crossed the Iron Bridge. The government has set up holding pens for the bison on the other side of Route 89. There are at least three pens surrounded by another fence with High Voltage warning signs. The pens held a large number of bison waiting disposition. We found what we were looking for.

We headed back to the hotel. We passed several herds of deer and a herd of elk along the road. After we got back to the hotel we ate dinner and retired early as we want to get an early start tomorrow in order to check out the elk carcass near Floating Island Lake.