YELLOWSTONE NP, USA
wanderlust.co.uk October 2019 43he grey wolf at the end of my viewing scope rose
from a pack of dark shapes clustered around their
kill. Stark against the pure white snow, she arched
her back in a stretching motion, loped towards
some rocks and squatted to urinate. I was
watching from a ridge at least half a kilometre
away across the Lamar Valley, but when she turned
to stare in my direction I could make out yellow
slit eyes and splashes of red around her muzzle.
“There’s nine of them feeding, so I’m wondering
where the rest of the pack have got to...” came an
authoritative voice from the scope next to mine.
“Seems like they’ve taken an elk... don’t reckon it’s
a fresh carcass... there may be coyotes hoping for
a share of the spoils, so listen out for their song.”
Emil McCain was our guide through the winter
wildlife and geological marvels of Yellowstone
National Park. A biologist, environmentalist and
specialist on the wolves of the park, he had proved
expert not only in locating them, but also in finding
the remote ridge for our group to observe them from
far enough away to remain unobserved ourselves.
Wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone in
1995 after an absence of 70 years. Sightings are rare
as there are only about 100 wolves in the park;
these are made up of about eight packs, includingthe Junction Butte pack, the family that Emil had
found for us. Yellowstone gives visitors the slim
chance to watch wolves roaming free, but in the dead
of winter, there are no other humans for miles
around: most of the park’s four million visitors arrive
between spring and autumn. But during the cold
season, while the bears are hibernating, a profusion
of other fauna takes to the snowy stage of an almost
deserted theatre. For the wolves, February is
breeding season so they move around like at no
other time, making them easier to spot against the
snow. I had arrived in Yellowstone hoping that
winter would be the opportunity to see them leave
trails in the wild and explore where those fragile
footprints may lead in the future.Hitting the hotspot
My trip had begun in Bozeman, Montana, a small
town with an Old West feel, where I met up with
our nine-strong group – Europeans, Australians
and a couple of Americans. Yellowstone’s North
Entrance was a couple of hours drive by minibus
across rolling white hills with our genial and
informative tour leader, California-based Ben
Collier, at the wheel. We would be joined at
various points by locally-based specialist experts
on the wildlife and geology of the 8,983 square-
kilometre territory, established in 1872 as
America’s (and the world’s) first national park.
Most of it is in Wyoming though the northern and
western fringes spill into Montana and Idaho.
The first stop in Yellowstone was Mammoth Hot
Springs, just south of the North Entrance. Here we
wandered around the travertine terraces,
a natural staircase of geothermal pools simmering
and bubbling down a mountainside. The
interaction of scalding water and freezing air
breathed swirling clouds into the atmosphere
while we descended the three-kilometre trail.
Lingering in the park’s north, the next day we
entered the Lamar Valley in search of a different
kind of spectacle. The broad, glacier-sculpted valley
teems with wildlife; a sort of Serengeti in the snow.
Wild animals roamed everywhere. We watched
strings of elk traipsing in single file throughLone wolf
There are about eight wolf
packs in Yellowstone;
(previous page) two iconic
symbols of the park: herds
of bison searching for
grass in the snow and
AWL Images; Natureplsteaming geysers