Curious Fox Day

A few days ago (on Mother's Day), after a long day of work Michael and I decided to check out the Lamar Valley where wolves and other such animals are known to be all the time.  We didn't see any wolves unfortunately but we did see some other cute animals!

We started the trip by heading to Mammoth Hot Springs for dinner where we ate at the Employee Dining Room where we ate with a bison outside the window! He was just sitting there while everyone ate their dinners; he was eating his dinner too!

After diner and a call to our moms to wish them a happy Mother's Day, we headed out to the Lamar Valley.  On the way we saw lots of animals.  First we passed some Elk eating grass in a field.  Next we came across some bison who were play fighting and huddling around the Roosevelt Ranger station.  On the other side of the road were the females and their youngsters called red dogs.  Some of the red dogs were jumping around and playing on their new legs, bumping into each other and falling on the ground.  It was very cute.


Continuing on our journey, we found ourselves stuck in our very first bear jam.  Tourists were crowding the side of the road and so we slowed down to see what the fuss was all about.  When we looked over on our left we saw to black bears in the field below looking around for food.  So we pulled over and got out of the car to take a closer look.  Michael manned the camera and I had the binoculars.  We watched them for awhile as they ate berries and wandered around.  As we were leaving, one of the bears ran across the road right next to one of the tourists and I was sure we were about to see a bear mauling.  I'm sure glad Xanterra made sure we are bear aware, so we won't have such a close encounter.  And if we do we will be prepared.

After this we arrived at the Tower Falls where we hiked around for a bit and saw the falls which are 132 feet high.  The view was spectacular.  The trail was closed off at one point down near the Yellowstone River but of course Mike had to go check it out.  We went on for about another 50 yards and saw why it was closed, a landslide had washed away 20 ft of the trail ahead.  We could see where it picked up on the other side but there was nothing in between.  Then we journeyed on to go back to the Lake area and we took the road that is closed to tourists.  Here the snow was still pretty high across Dunraven Pass, but we were on the lookout for any animals, particularly wolves since I really want to see some. Suddenly, while we were driving Michael hit the brakes and backed up a bit.  Looking out his window, I could see a fluffy orange face peeking over the snowbank.  It was a cute little red fox!  He was the most curious fox I have ever seen.  While we sat watching him he came right over to the car and sat there looking at us.  He was very curious.  We got lots of good pictures of him and then decided to let him keep hunting for little critters and rolled on towards home.  I'll let Michael describe what happened next:

"Well, we were just drivin' on down the road talkin' about that fox that we seen.  We were all tickled and excited about it since he came right up to the car window that we were startled when we saw another critter right in the road ahead of us.  Guess what, another grizzly bear!  He must have heard us comin' cuz he was haulin A** down the road!  Before we had time to stop he had crossed the road and jumped right into a 5 ft tall snowbank...without even rolling the window down I could hear the weight of the bear hit the snow with them paws.  It had the same kinda sound that big rocks make when they hit the water...SKADOOSH SKADOOSH.  Buddy, let me tell ya, we musta gave that bear the scare of his life cuz he didn't stop runnin' the whole time we were in view of him, even when he reached the safety of the pine forest.  There won't no time for a picture, but I believe he was the biggest one we seen yet.   We didn't want to disturb him anymore than we already had so we kept on goin' once he was safely off into the woods."

See you next time for the next Mike and Sam Adventures!!