Bear!

Another early morning as we wanted to see as much wildlife as possible.  Our first interesting sight was an eagle across the river; he had just finished breakfast and we could see the remains around him.  We continued to the spot where the grizzly bears had been seen the day before and scanned with our binoculars.  No bears.  We did see two wolves at a distance, then enjoyed watching a Swainson's Hawk for a long time; it's a beautiful bird.  We were really cold so we stopped at Canyon Village for breakfast.  Several of the gift shops in the park have 50's-type counter dining and that's where we ate. 

After breakfast we drove north toward Tower-Roosevelt.  This is also bear territory and we carefully scanned the terrain for bears but no luck.  Interestingly, there are many signs along the eastern roads we are taking saying that these areas have a lot of bear activity and are closed to people.  There are also "bear management" areas that have been closed to people so that the bears can live unbothered.  We stopped at both south and north ends of Mount Washburn trail to check it out; we were seriously thinking of taking this difficult vertical narrow ledge hike (about a 5 hour hike) the next day as I really wanted to see a bear and this is bear country.  The trails go up 1400 feet to the summit, which is 10,243 feet.  We stopped at Tower Falls and drove through some pretty countryside with fall colors.  Even here there is a lot of devastation remaining from the 1988 fire that raged through Yellowstone.  Much of the terrain in this area is lodgepole pine and whitebark pine with some meadows of wildflowers. 

We were driving back south through bear territory and saw people stopped on the side of the road.  They said they had just seen a black bear but he had disappeared into the forest.  Most of the people got into their cars and left.  We stayed.  Soon the bear reappeared and we watched him move through the forest for a long time, quite close to the road.  Once he came down onto the road, then went back up into the forest.  Later he headed back down and was so close to us that the ranger yelled to everyone: "Get back in your cars now!"  (The rangers drive around and look for activity, also have walkie talkies and are alerted by other rangers or by people calling in).  This bear was magnificent and we feel so lucky to have seen him.  That was certainly the highlight of the day.

When the bear wandered up the forested hills and we lost sight of him, we got back in the car and went to the Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone.  This was simply named Grand Canyon until Arizona took that name.  Now it's often called just Canyon.  We stopped at all of the view points, which Mark enjoyed and where I tended to stay well away from the edges. 

We went back to our Hayden Valley spot and saw another coyote and a red-tailed hawk.  When the coyote went out of range, we moved on and saw another eagle and lots of buffalo by the river.  Bald eagles were endangered in Yellowstone from 1978-2007.  We have now had six eagle sightings; amazing and wonderful.

We had planned to spend the middle of the day at the lodge but were very glad we'd gone north; we never would have seen the bear otherwise.  It was dark again when we got back to the lodge and we went straight to dinner since the cafeteria closes at 9.  We decided to skip the strenuous hike tomorrow since the goal was to see a bear.