#wolves

Photo courtesy of Kyle Moon Only a few lucky visitors to Yellowstone may witness wolves hunting, taking down, or feeding on an elk or bison. If you are one of these fortunate few, you can almost always see a sleek, black bird known as the common raven as the first scavenger wandering around a wolf-killed…

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…

  “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…

“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…

“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, and I was in the back seat of a snowcoach—a tricked-out van with massive low-pressure tires for navigating the snowed-over roads of Yellowstone’s…

  Photo Courtesy Emil McCain, owner Yellowstone Wild Tours. Navigating snow, sagebrush, and downed timber, Yellowstone Wild Owner Emil McCain and 2023-24 winter guides came across telltale prints in the mid-December snowpack: wolves! The tracks merged, converged, showed signs of trotting and loping, and at times crisscrossed downed trees playfully. Finally, at a clearing boasting…

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…