The Wildlife of the Mt Washburn Area of Yellowstone- My favorite post so far from my western trip

We drove into the park from the northeast entrance. From that entrance to the loop road, you go through Lamar Valley. Lamar Valley is unlike any valley I have ever seen. There are mountains on both sides but they are ten miles apart and the basin on the bottom is relatively flat. It is immense. In the valley we saw in the hour of driving and stopping, an eagle fly by, a pronghorn herd, a buffalo herd and THREE grizzlies. For some reason, I do not have any pictures of this. I don't know if I accidentally deleted them, or if I just didn't take any because the animals were so far away.

The good news is Yellowstone wildlife more than made up for my carelessness. We took hundreds of pictures of wildlife throughout the park. Animals were everywhere. The reason I am singling out this specific area is we spent four days in this area. We daytriped from our campground, but we always had to come back through the Mt. Washburn area.

This area of the park is near the tourist area known as Canyon. Canyon was hence named because the campground, gift shop, ice cream shop, showers,etc were built near the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Artist Point.

We did a hike up Mt Washburn. It is only three miles each way. It does end over 10,000 feet. One of my bucket list goals was to do a hike over that height. This one is sort of cheating because it climbs the mountain on a fire road. The reason we did it, was I read there is a bighorn sheep herd on the mountain, and we might get a chance to see some. Boy did we ever.

As we were hiking up, we saw these sheep. We were so excited, we snapped a quick picture

As it turns out, they have no fear of people. They were very cooperative photo subjects

We also saw this weasel carrying a mouse

This little guy is a pika. They are little rodents that live at high elevations. They scurry around looking for food for the winter. They are not as easy to get a picture of as sheep

So that was our hike up Mt Washburn. I didn't even bother to post the wildflower meadow that went up the whole first mile or the beautiful view from the top.If you ever go to Yellowstone, take a morning and do this hike.


 On the part of the road that lead from our campground to Mt Washburn, and other places we traveled, lived a grizz and her cubs. We saw her  multiple times. It doesn't matter what you have read, if you have seen a black bear and not a grizz, you will not be prepared for the size difference. They are enormous. The hump on the back is much more intimidating in person than in photos or nature documentaries. We didn't see any males up close, but they weight 400
pounds more than a sow. I'd have loved to have seen a bear that big.

In case we weren't spoiled enough, these animals below also lived in the area withing thirty minutes of our campground.

 This black bear was just off the parking lot at the Petrified Tree.It was actively feeding, but I don't know on what.

Uintas Ground Squirrel

This elk herd lived in the field/woods just off our campground road

This bull also lived in the area, staying by himself, but within
smell of the herd. We saw it multiple times, but it was on
the main road, so we could never stop for long to get the perfect
picture because a car would always come along

Swainson's Hawk

Eagle along the Madison River

Probably the best picture we got of a marmot

Mountain Bluebirds are so pretty, that DJ and I both wanted the perfect picture of one. Every time one of us had the camera and a bluebird showed up, just as we'd focus it would fly away or it would have our back turned. The light might have been bad or it would be too far away. Needless to say we were getting frustrated with each other. We even got into arguments because we thought the one with the camera should have gotten the picture. Finally this one came along and we snapped a few shots of it before it took off. This is the best one. It is off center, but they are wild animals so I'm okay with it. An 8x10 hangs outside my bathroom door.