Animals, Animals Everywhere!

I had an unexpectedly amazing overnight trip. First, I must say that the Slough Creek Campground is absolutely gorgeous. My intentions were to camp along the creek but those sites were full. To my delight, I ended up in the best site of them all. Under 3 huge pine trees with a small, sagebrush & wildflower-covered meadow for a view and hills and mountains in the background. Many deer came through the meadow. Some stopped to graze, some ran through. A fox played along the creek and in the meadow. It came into people's camps and was quite a people-friendly creature. I took a short video of it but I don't know how to load those into the blog yet. Other animals on the trip (not in the campground): a small black bear, a lone bighorn sheep grazing roadside, a small moose, lots of pelicans, the usual buffalo but only one elk, and the prize this time-a grizzly. The buffalo had a lot of calves. This is only the third time I've ever seen a moose here(keep in mind I've been coming here since I was 7 years old and am now 38!). Bighorn sheep seem pretty rare anymore. There used to be herds of them coming down out of the high mountains in winter to graze the lower elevations now I'm lucky to see a single sheep every few years.

Now the bear story. The grizzly was in southern Hayden Valley in the Trout Creek area about 10am. It wandered up by a buffalo and kind of half-attempted to charge it but it backed off quickly and ran away. The buffalo never moved an inch. Then the bear wandered around looking at plants until it got to the top of a hill (by the road). Then it saw all of us tourists and debated on crossing the road or not. It was a cute bear and appeared unaggitated with all of us, just a bit leary. Then another buffalo came running from across the other side of the road not knowing the bear was there. The bear had already decided to cross the road at that time so there was no interaction between the two. After that, I decided I would leave the "bear jam". I had a couple pictures and did not want to bother the animal more. It was a collared bear and somebody said it was a female. Beautiful sight with its brown fur and muscle rippling in the sunlight! No wolves this time-not even a howl-and I even camped in an area of overlapping territory for 3 packs.

Also, this Slough Creek campground is where the poor cinnamon black bear from an earlier post met its untimely death. I felt quite sad as I glanced along the creek where the bear had died, still laying partially in the water. Despite this sadness, the trip was a fantastic celebration of animal life.