Blog & Trip Reports

“What’s your favorite season in the park?” This is perhaps the most common question asked of any longtime, local Yellowstone resident. The answers vary, of course, but it would be difficult to find anyone who didn’t include spring. So, what makes spring such a joyous time of year? Springtime in Yellowstone is the season of…

  This winter an incredible event unfolded here on the Northern Range of Yellowstone National Park. In late January a wildlife guide was watching a lone mountain goat high on a cliff band above the Lamar Valley. The goat stomped repeatedly while looking intently at the rock wall in front of it, or at least…

We are as excited as you are the first day of springtime has finally arrived here in Yellowstone National Park! Though we continue offering winter tours through the end of March (and wolf watching has continued to be very successful) we thought we’d share some of the things we are looking forward to when we…

  Photo courtesy of NPS – Yellowstone. We kicked off our Yellowstone adventure with a mesmerizing exploration of the Mammoth terraces in northern Yellowstone National Park. The intricate formations of travertine created a surreal landscape—as if we were wandering through a scene from another planet. The geothermal activity was captivating, with steaming pools and colorful…

For most of the afternoon the large, tan-colored cat was basically impossible to see, bedded down behind a boulder high on the cliff ledge. Occasionally, it rolled over or repositioned, briefly revealing its foot or head from behind the rock, and if you looked really closely you could see the black tip of the lion’s…

One thing I like about guiding in Yellowstone National Park is that every day is different. There are some days where we have to work hard to find wildlife, and there are other days where Yellowstone smiles upon us and decides to share her bounty at every bend in the road. This was one of…

The howl of a wild wolf cuts right through to the soul. It is a haunting and beautiful sound, full of ancient wisdom, yearning, passion, and sorrow. I have heard that call many times, usually from a great enough distance that there is a few-second lag between seeing the howl in our spotting scopes and…

It was cold, dark, and early when I picked up the mixed group for day one of four we would have together. People in this group came from all over: a couple people from the Midwest; England was represented along with Canada; and someone even traveled all the way from Australia! They were strangers—soon to…

“Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf,” wrote philosopher, forester, and conservationist Aldo Leopold. The words appeared in his famous essay “Thinking Like a Mountain,” which eloquently examines the presence—or lack of—wolves in the environment and how it affects deforestation of the landscape. Here in Yellowstone,…

“Brrrr! But isn’t it cold visiting Yellowstone National Park during winter?” While outdoor temperatures certainly drop in the world’s first national park during December through early March, rest assured we at Yellowstone Wild Tours are prepared and well equipped to help you enjoy frost-covered wildlife and snowy landscapes in comfort and style while on tour…

A great gray owl perches in a tree before flying off to continue hunting. Photo courtesy Yellowstone Wild Guide Rob Harwood.   “Owl!” I heard excited voices calling from the front of the snow coach. It was a beautiful December morning on the road between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone,…

Photo Courtesy Al DeNoise Yellowstone National Park is a winter wonderland with its pristine, snow-covered landscapes and abundant wildlife. Among the park’s most fascinating creatures are the weasels, which seem to perform their own magical transformation as they turn the color of their fur and hair coats, called pelage, from a sleek, chestnut brown to…