Chapter 3 Artist's Lookout, Backcountry & Bears

Again, we woke with the sun shining bright in out faces, yet it was only 6am. Each time we slept in the car we got a little faster at setting up and breaking down. Funny thing is, I think packing for the bike trip was still easier! Maybe because for that one we were forced to pack light. Car camping was straight glamorous compared to that.

I didn't write it down so I don't remember what we had for breakfast this day, but we were on the way to our day hike by 730am.

The air was so foggy with sulfur.

And in case you were wondering, it really does smell like egg farts.

We had planned to start at Uncle Tom's trailhead, but the part connecting this trail to the rest had been closed because of ice. Or a bear? We're not really sure. We drove and started from Artist Point instead.

Tour tip: Artist's Point got its name in error. Many people thought that it was at this lookout that artist, Thomas Moran was inspired to paint his famous piece in 1872. Moran's painting was actually from the point of view at the north rim overlook, not the south rim.

We hiked the South Rim trail to Ribbon Lake. The terrain varied from dirt to marsh to snow with some pretty steep inclines and declines. A nice hike to get your heartrate going. It was also fairly empty which was neat. We made sure to wear our bear bell.

When got to Ribbon Lake right at lunchtime. We ate our usual hiking sandwiches and then headed back.

Turns out there are actually campsites out here. And cell service. We phoned a friend to see if it was for real.

After the hike we began our drive to Lamar Valley in search of more wildlife encounters. There was much more traffic on the road around this area, and for good reason! The traffic jam was being caused by sightings of a black bear and her cub. We stopped to join in and in no time caught sight of the pair. We actually got very lucky, the two made their way down the hill and across the road just one vehicle ahead of us and we were able to get some neat pictures.

After the bears, we saw mostly bison and deer, so we decided to turn around and head to our next campsite, Bridge Bay.

On the way back, somewhere in Hayden Valley there was a small group of people looking out with binoculars into the foothills. We stopped and walked up to the nearest group to inquire what they were looking at. To our delight, the group just so happened to be led by a wilderness tour guide who had been tracking wolves since earlier that morning - by now it was already late afternoon.

Six wolves had been stalking a herd of elk waiting for one of the younger elks to stray from the herd. One of the adult elks had sighted the wolves and was making a valiant maneuver away from the herd to scare them off. The rest of the herd took the baby elk to hide under a tree. This had been going on for hours.

We were lucky enough to catch sight of four wolves, three white and one gray, just as they gave up the hunt. Had we shown up two minutes later we might not have been able to see them! Had we chosen any other group to ask what was going on, we may not have had the guide to point us in the right direction and would have never seen wolves!

Unfortunately, we saw everything through the binoculars so I don't have any pictures. But seeing them was enough for us. Hearing them would have been bone chilling. Next time I guess.

That summed up our animal sightseeing. We were starving so we continued onward to the campsite.

From there, we drove the final stretch to our last campground, Bridge Bay. We skipped the showers this day, they weren't any nearby and we hadn't gotten too grimey - the hike was shorter today and it was still so cold that we weren't smelly or sweaty at all.

Bridge Bay campground was a little different than the rest. It was vast, there was so much empty space. It's definitely in my top 5 favorite campgrounds.

In fact, it's so big that a bison wandered into the middle of it and just grazed in our neighbor's campground! It was a bit nerve racking watching some of the visitors walk so casually into the danger zone just to get a photo. No, I don't have a photo. I was not one of those people.

This evening we were able to cook ourselves a hot meal. My brother in law gave us one of those "Adventure Meals" from Costco to try on our trip. We barely got the water hot enough to "cook" it but we got the job done. It was such a treat to eat something hot.

Then we made some smores - stoked that we got to do smores at all of the campsites. Yeah, I still count the non-roasted smores.

Curtis met our neighbor, a biker, who set up camp right across from us. He had been travelling on his bike for 2 years from Mexico to Alaska to here then to Canada. He had been riding all the bike only paths in the park. So cool.

Also pictured above you'll notice the close up of our sleeping quarters. Look at those pillows and super warm sleeping bags! So. Luxurious. And that's our last night in Yellowstone National Park! We would be headed to the Tetons in the morning.