Elephant Back and Wolves

We went on a hike up Elephant Back Mountain this morning. We were lucky enough to have Ranger Harlan lead it (the same person who did the campfire program we attended).

Ranger Harlan is also a high school biology teacher. The students that have him as a teacher are lucky. He finds stories in all the natural world. For example, we stopped by one small Lodgepole Pine tree growing from the top of a boulder. He said that he had been watching that tree for forty years. It's a bonsai tree of sorts, kept small by the circumstances of its little ecosystem on top of the boulder, where perhaps a squirrel might bring a bit of pine cone to add to its organic matter to hold the moisture.

We had great views of Yellowstone Lake from the top. We sat on a bench and ate our lunch while gazing out at the lake and the mountains beyond.

Tonight we went back to Hayden Valley, and this time we were rewarded with the sight of wolves. Wolf pups, to be exact, and at a great distance, but very exciting nonetheless. Our spotting scope was able to pick them out, but several other people had more magnification, and some of them let us look through their scopes too. Annie was very excited to see the wolves--as were the rest of us.

On the way back from that outing, we ran into a storm. It didn't seem like much, but soon we found ourselves stopped in traffic. It turned out that several trees had fallen across the road. Lodgepole pines have very shallow roots, and a fierce wind must have passed through.

We also got to see the rain falling through the sunlight behind us--and a rainbow, briefly, when we came to a break in the trees by the river.


We got some laundry done this afternoon. The laundry at the campground is pretty nice--but very far from our site, so we drove back and forth.