September 24…. The Grizz

Another long drive, this time up to the northeast corner of the park to Lamarr Valley, in search of wildlife.

LOTS of buffalo all over the valley. Herds of 8 or 10, to as many as 300 to 400. Lots of single males sprinkled here and there.

We saw a bunch of antelope, but not really, these are pronghorns. Antelope are an African species. These look kinda similar, but the African variety has horns that are permanent. Pronghorns grow and shed theirs every year. Pronghorns are unique to North America. “Where the deer and the antelope play…”, these are the so called antelope that the song is about.

We saw mountain sheep, aka Bighorns, but only females. The rams would be the ones with the huge curved horns that butt heads, the females all have shorter curved horns like swords.

And best of all, we saw our Grizzly Bear again. So cute. So fuzzy. So cuddly. Just begging to be petted. As long as you can ignore the sharp claws and enormous fangs.

As we returned to camp, we passed through another valley area, frequented by wildlife. And there he was. About a hundred yards off the road and in a perfect place for us to pull over before the crowd arrived. We hit the side of the road and hopped out to start chasing him for the perfect photo. Not really, no chasing, but still some great pictures.

We must have watched him for 40 minutes, as he rambled across the hillside. He’d dig in the dirt for a minute, then lay down in it for a bit, then sit up straight to look around and do it all again. A ranger showed up for crowd control, and to hold back the people who really did want to run out there for closeup selfies.

Eventually, in the bears meandering, he moved a bit closer to us. In order to give her a better view, I allowed Susanne to stand out front between me and the bear. I’m a great husband that way.

After watching Mr Grizzly for a while, we were satisfied and headed off back to camp. Just before getting back, we spotted yet more wildlife.

Elk were out in a meadow near camp, so we stopped for more photos of a couple young males.

And as we (and everyone else) were focused on the elk, I noticed one guy over in the corner aiming his long lens in a different direction, so I paid attention over there, and spotted the prettiest little fox hunting in the grass.