Trip Reports

  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…

  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…

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…

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 of Yellowstone Wild Guide Evan Watts / Watts Wildlife Photography. Sparse clouds caught the orange glow of the rising sun as we drove east. It was a cool, damp morning in mid-July, and as we made our way into the Lamar Valley, the sun rose just enough to reveal the gentle, rolling slopes…

One of the last days of June and the dash tells me it’s 38° F at 6 a.m. Awesome! That is exactly what I want on a morning drive to the center of a volcano. Geyser steam hangs thick in the air like cream of mushroom soup and Yellowstone is virtually deserted. As we drive…

  As a naturalist guide in Yellowstone, one of the most coveted sightings as far as wildlife is concerned is to catch a fox hunting—or “mousing”— for its prey. However, because of foxes’ tendency to be more active at night, this sighting can prove to be a difficult challenge. On an early Sunday morning in…

Day after day, month after month, year after year, familiar faces show themselves in Yellowstone. For some, this means people: the wolf watchers, those individuals with the largest spotting scopes of all that we’ve grown to love and admire throughout time; the geyser geeks in their floppy sun hats, letting us know when our favorite…