Day 2 Yellowstone: Watching for Wolves at Slough Creek

There are very few places where you can drive up, park and take a stand that allows you to see the wolves on a regular basis. We had decided that we would spend our second day watching the wolf den at Slough Creek.

Getting up early, I discovered that our heater didn’t work. It had started up and ran perfectly at our place in tar Valley but here but the elevation at Canyon Campground was about eight thousand feet above sea level and so the heater started but then shut off as the low oxygen sensor shut the heater down.

Making coffee and breakfast warmed the camper up and we were soon heading toward the Lamar Valley. Crossing Dunraven Pass, we looked for bears but the sow and cubs from the day before had moved and there were no bear jams along our route.

We were some of the first to arrive at Slough Creek and so we set up out telescope at our favorite spot and got out the lawn chairs for a laid-back day. Not long after we set up I spotted a black wolf loping toward the den. As she neared the den, black pups poured form the den and she stopped to nurse them. It was a mass of black fur and we really couldn’t get any good images as the den is a long way away.

Still we took some images and we tried to hold our cell phone to the eyepiece of the telescope, (we have a small celestron 90 that I purchased on eBay for less than two hundred dollars). The female went into the den and the pups followed her, so we really didn’t get any good shots.

George and Val had decided to check out Pebble Creek looking for bear and other wolves, but we had already decided to spend the day watching the den.

There are always other wildlife to watch and a herd of nine bighorn sheep grazed, heading toward the wolf den. However, they stopped when they got close and smelling the wolves turned back.

Lunch time arrived, and Renita went back to the truck. AS she sat in the truck I spotted a grey wolf walking down the trail that heads to the den! I got her attention and ran back to the telescope to watch the black wolf come out to greet her fellow pack mate, (we never did see any male and others told us that the male had disappeared).

The den couldn’t contain the pups and they came out! The black and grey females were surrounded by the pups, six black and two greys. All found their mother and started to nurse. It was quite a sight to see two adults and six pups wandering around the den site.

(The den is the bright area in the center. Above the den stands a black wolf on the left with a mass of black pups nursing and to the right a white wolf with two grey pups nursing. Obviously I haven't quite figured out how to use the phone camera on the telescope. Many of our sightings are a long ways away).
 The grey wolf walked down to a pond below the den, but the pups stayed near the protection of the den. Another wolf watcher told us that days before, two of the pups had been carried away by a male. The black wolf stayed near the den mouth and the pups wandered around a bit exploring and enjoying the warm sunny morning.

As we watched the wolves George and Val returned and were able to see eight wolves. They hadn’t spotted any wolves or bears and had missed the mountain goats at Pebble Creek. They did comment on the considerable number of elk and bison with bison calves, all food sources for the wolves and bears. They decided to head back to our campground and they later told us they had been able to watch the black bear with her three cubs.

Too soon the wolves returned to the den. The pups went inside, and the black wolf joined them. The grey female climbed back up the hillside and laid down in a copse of pine trees before getting back up and disappearing over a small hill, (Last year we had leaned that there was another pond and a second den nearby).

Three otters were fishing in Slough Creek and one submerged before returning to the surface with a fresh caught Yellowstone cutthroat trout. It quickly swallowed the fish, before I could get, and image and they swam upstream where I was able to get a poor image of one of the otters peering over a log.

Later in the afternoon a buffalo grazed toward the den and got quite close before it raised its head to smell the air. The wolves must have marked the area well and the bison turned around and headed back to a nearby meadow. It was a bull bison and really would not have been in any danger from the small pack, (we were told there were a total of four adults).

Late afternoon the wolves made another appearance, staying out of the den and entertaining us with the sight of playful pups and watchful moms. Finally, they retuned to the den and we decided it was time for us to head back to the campground.

It had been at day at Slough Creek! Eating dinner at the restaurant we discussed the next day’s activities. New images had appeared on Facebook, of two other famous grizzly bears.  They have been named by other bear enthusiasts Raspberry and Snow, (the park service does not name bears), and had been feeding on grubs and tubers near Sylvan pass and so bears would be tomorrows quest! Clear skies