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| Map of Yellowstone |
Yellowstone Wildlife Safari
I've been lucky enough to spend a lot of time in Africa, leading
safaris from Kenya down to Cape Town. One of the big draws of traveling all the way to Africa is to see and experience a place where big animals still roam, and the predators still rule.
So imagine my surprise when I found out that you could have a similar experience right here in my backyard, a place called Yellowstone National Park. After leading adventures in British Columbia this spring I flew into
Jackson Hole, Wyoming to meet up with my dad and Cheryl to go on an American wildlife safari and this is what we saw.... in one day.
To get to Yellowstone from Jackson you drive north through Grand Teton National Park and after an hour and a half you enter the south entrance of Yellowstone. Before we got to the entrance we had already come across a major traffic jam cause by a grizzly bear near the road. We got out and walked over to the crowd and were greeted with not one, but three grizzly bears, a mom and her two playful yearling cubs.
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| Grizzly Bear with cub |
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| This is what a bear jam looks like |
The crowd continued to grow and I was a little shocked that the rangers allowed everyone to stand just seventy yards away as the mom fed on grass and the cubs ate daffodils in between playful wrestling matches. I though about managing hiking groups in Alaska in this situation and that is only a group of ten! But the bears continued to act like bears and didn't seem to mind the camera filled crowd.
While we watched the grizzly mom and cubs we heard that there was also a black bear up around the corner. It is fun to be in a place where both species lives side by side. We missed the black bear but we did have an even better black bear encounter up near Tower in the park. A mama bear and her tiny cub were slowly moving and eating about 50 yards off the road down a little slope.
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| Look what I found mom! |
We stayed up on the side of the road looking down and watched the energetic baby bear race back and forth past her lumbering mom. The cub tried to climb a big tree trunk twice, but aborted each time. Then the curious cub found a little sapling pine tree and scampered up it. To its surprise the bear found a robins nest in the tree. I don't think it knew quite what it had found, so while the cub spent a lot of time examining the bright blue eggs in the nest it didn't eat them in the end.
The concentration of big mammals in the park really made me feel like I was back in Africa. Then you add the beautiful scenery and all of the geothermal volcanic activity and it turns into a must see for anyone. It is a World Heritage Sight and a Biosphere Reserve, and quite important historically as it is our very first National Park. It contains 67 species of mammals and is great for birding as well.
Some of the species we came across are big and charismatic like moose and big horn sheep. But smaller mammals can also steal the show from ground squirrels to yellow bellied marmots. Elk can still be seen in large herds and wolves draw a large following of 'wolf watchers', who bring out chairs and spotting scopes to watch them from across valleys.
You can check out some of my best pictures from the day and this part of the world here:
DaiMar's Photos
One of the most idyllic sightings in Yellowstone are the herds of massive bison, or American buffalo, that still dot these rolling plains. This picture of a bison eating near a river with steam from a hot spring in the background is a vision of Yellowstone that I won't forget. For the most part these are docile creatures interested only in mowing down the grass. However this has lulled visitors into a false sense of safety in the past and every year some person gets too close and ends up getting tossed by a bison. I made sure I didn't make that mistake, so this wide angle picture below was taken by sticking my camera out of the window from the safety of our vehicle. But it does show how close this bison came to us!
I'm back in Alaska after almost a year to be expedition leader for UnCruise's newest itinerary: Bears, Bergs, and Bushwhacking. This itinerary is only run by our smallest boat, the 22 passenger Safari Quest. With wilderness management protections in place here in the Tongass National Forest, the Safari Quest is able to take passengers into highly protected areas where only two groups of 12 hikers can step foot onto ground each day. The amazing Admiralty Island, or what the local Tlingit people call the island "Kootznoowoo" or Fortress of the Bear, because it has the highest concentration of brown bears in the world. 
The trip ends up doing a round trip back to Petersburg, which means that most of the time out on the water we are in prime humpback whale feeding grounds. Frederick Sound has been a hot spot for humpback whales spending the summer months here in Southeast Alaska. Calm waters of the Inside Passage mixed with snow capped mountains in the background provide stunning locals for whale encounters.
The wildlife of Alaska is always an amazing part of the trip. But it is often the glaciers that leave a lasting impression of the guests and the crew alike. Waking up to see giant pieces of ice floating by, made up of impossibly blue color is only the beginning of the wonder of these glaciers. Seeing a 200ft tall wall of ice, that sometimes breaks off apartment building size chunks is an experience no one can ever forget. The landscapes here are stunning, from rivers of ice, to sunsets near 10pm, to a lone bald eagle perched atop a floating berg. 
