Day Four

On Sunday, we were up at 4:30 am for a sunrise session on the Lamar Valley. We headed out to a spot that I had scouted the night before. There were some nice thermal ponds, grasses and glacial boulders littering the landscape. We spent about an hour shooting and then headed further into the valley. At one point we ran into a welcome bison jam as a giant herd of bison and their calves made their way across the road. On our way back to the Roosevelt Lodge, we were treated with four black bear sightings! Two of the bears walked right next to the van.

After a well-earned breakfast at the lodge, we continued our grand tour of Yellowstone. On the itinerary were stops at Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris Geyser Basin, and Old Faithful. It was a day full of thermal features and wildlife sightings, including a roadside bull elk with an enormous velvet covered rack, a couple of coyotes, and a gray wolf. We left Old Faithful at 4:00 anxious to get back to Jackson and our comfy cabins at the Cowboy Village.