Lamar Valley

On the morning of June 12 we sadly packed up our tent and the rest of our campsite.  There was still frost on our tent when we packed up (it was quite early) so it had to go away wet since we had no way of drying it off completely.  Little did we know then that it would be dried out not too long after--but you'll have to wait a few days to hear that story.

We still had a few more sights to see in Yellowstone, but this was the day that we were going to finally leave the park and continue on our trip home.  I was looking forward to the sights we would see during the rest of the trip, but I wasn't looking forward to leaving the national park.  It had been fifteen years since my last visit, and I don't know when we'll be able to go back again--but hopefully before fifteen more years have elapsed.

We retraced some of the route the day before as we drove past Canyon Village and headed north.  The road winds up the slopes of Mount Washburn (at 10,243 feet it is one of the taller, but not the tallest, points in the park) after passing through Dunraven Pass at 8,859 feet in elevation.  As we passed the area of Tower Fall I stopped to take some pictures of rock formations that I'd noted the day before but hadn't been able to photograph.

As you can see these rock walls were directly by, and over the road.

Once we got to the Lamar Valley we drove towards the Northeast Entrance for a while.  We didn't intend to go out of the park that way (we hadn't yet seen Mammoth Hot Springs), but I'd heard that the Lamar Valley was a great place to see wildlife, and there might be a passport stamp in the area.  I never did see the stamp, but we did see plenty of wildlife, including more bison in one place than we had seen thus far on our drives throughout the park.  There was also at least one geothermal feature, though I'm not too certain where it was.

When we started seeing animals there were both bison and pronghorn together.

But there were plenty of bison together.

Here is a closeup of the group in the picture above.

Amy's favourite were the babies.

I liked pictures of individual bison also.

As we drove back to the road that would take us towards Mammoth Hot springs we saw some people stopped on the side of the road.  When I investigated I found that they were photographing a pronghorn on the top of a small hill by the side of the road.  It was a great opportunity to get some close-up shots of this amazing animal.

I kept shooting as it eventually turned towards us.

Then it made its way down the hill and crossed the road.


It moved away, but not too quickly.  A short while later we encountered several bison who had apparently decided to use the road as their path for the day.

In Yellowstone you learn pretty quickly that the bison get their way most of the time.  If they want to walk somewhere there is nobody to tell them no.  It may be slightly inconvenient at times, but it also makes for some great photo opportunities.

And I think that the bison know they won't be molested and can pretty much go wherever they want to go.  I was just glad that we had access to a turn off on the right hand side of the road and weren't stuck behind the bison as they moseyed up the road.


I'd like to visit the Lamar Valley again, and perhaps see a bit more of it.  I've heard that it is similar to the Hayden Valley in that it is a great place to view sometimes large numbers, but nearly often a wide range of wild animals.

~Matt

PS Here are all of the album's pictures: