One Last Yellowstone Visit

Our stay in Bozeman is winding down so we headed out to Yellowstone for one last winter visit.  Temperatures were in the low teens with what we like to call 'magic snow'...snow that appears out of basically nothing.  Sun was shining and it was snowing, but since it was so dry the snow moved like smoke across the road and shimmered in the air.  Beautiful day.

There seemed to be large number of buffalo and elk quite a few miles outside of the Park.  Along the road we encountered two big groups of elk...especially close to the small Gardnier Airport.  Which made us wonder how often do the elk and buffalo wander onto the landing strip?  Seeing either one of those on the runway cannot end well for either the small plane or the animal.

As we drove past the arch into the Park right along the road were several large groups of Prong Horn.  These are one of our favorite animals to watch, but really hard to get a clear photo.  Their fur plays havoc with the camera which then creates a fuzzy blurry image.

We had not ever seen this many Prong Horn so close to the roadway. 

A few miles further we could see some critters on top of a huge mountain of rock and dirt.  Usually the area has Desert Big Horn Sheep, but the debate raged on between Elk and Big Horn until the photo...Desert Big Horn.  At least we got the shot...blurry as it may be it proved Cindi was correct.

Funny thing we didn't see nearly as many buffalo as our last trip as we made our way to Lamar Valley.  It seemed as if most of the herd was hanging out in Gardnier Valley rather than inside the Park.

We did see something we have rarely seen...2 dead buffalo pretty darn close to the road.  Last week there had been a report of 3 dead buffalo that had been illegally shot.  We wondered what had happened to these two, but they certainly provided much needed food to quite a few others.  No bears or wolves were hanging around...at least none out in the open.  Yes, we did take pictures of the kill site...amazing to see how little is left from such a huge animal.  No we did not get too close...the Park Rangers had closed the area behind a sign to humans due to 'Spring Bear Activity'.  But boy did we want to get closer to see what animal tracks we could find.

Driving back the Bozeman we passed elk, buffalo and even 3 Rocky Mountain Big Horn all standing either on the highway or right beside it.  None seemed too concerned about the traffic whizzing by at 70 MPH.