Click on the map to enlarge it. About This Site Planning Your Trip -- Detailed Expanations Old Faithful & the Geothermal Areas Yellowstone Lake Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Mammoth Hot Springs Wildlife Safari in the Lamar Valley Grand Teton National Park Float Down The Snake River The Grand Teton Wildlife Safari The Eagle Chases An Osprey Wild Flowers, Berries and Trees This travelogue is one family's experience in Yellowstone. To see a photo in a 1024 x 681 size, just click on it. We hope you enjoy the record of our journey, and that you get to experience your own. Note: Stock photos of these and many other images with reproduction rights are available in their original 3008 x 2000 size. We also have a screen saver. Click here for more information. The final morning of our vacation, we went on a full day wilflife safari in Grand Teton National Park with Taylor Phillips of Jackson Hole EcoTour Adventures. This shot is a sunrise overlooking the National Elk Refuge just outside of Jackson, WY. The elk use the refuge in the winter for survival. In the summer, they wander all over the Grand Teton and Yellowstone areas. On our trip, we drove down a side road that parallels a small stream in the park while primarily searching for moose. While we only spotted one moose who was hiding in the brush, we ran across a few dozen buffalos. Here they are grazing on a hillside with the Grand Tetons in the background. Incidentally, we also saw an amazing sight -- an eagle chasing an osprey for food, which I captured on film and have placed on a separate web page. A few of the buffalo broke away from the main herd and we on a closer hillside nearby. Here are two females who almost on cue seemed to look right at us. This youngster was crossing the road to get to the same hillside. Our tour took us to a variety of stops where wildlife is frequently spotted. It also covered the history of the park itself, including some of its early settlers. The following barn was built in the 1800s by Mormon settlers in the area. While it has been preserved by the National Park Service, it looks largely like it did back then. Unfortunately, you can't call the animals up the night before to negotiate where they'll be for viewing the next day. Hence, Taylor takes us to locations where he knows that various animals frequent. Serendipity, however, also plays huge role. We went for a bio break to Moose Junction, which is right on the Snake River, and saw this black bear in a triangular slice of trees sandwiched between parking lots. The bear was stranded in the small clump of trees because of all the attention it was getting from near-by tourists on both sides, so a ranger maneuvered us in such a way that we created a corridor for the bear to cross the road. Here's a shot of the bear as it crossed to an open area where it could escape into a nearby field near the Snake River. It seemed like mother nature was on our side at Moose Junction bio break. Within seconds of our bear encounter, someone spotted a moose who was just several hundred yards away on the other side of the Snake River. So we walked across a bridge over the river and saw this moose from a short distance. The river bank is just through the trees. As we continued on our journey, we stopped at Jenny Lake where Taylor snapped this picture of Teresa and me. Here's a picture I snapped of Taylor (center) who was talking to our small group, which includes Teresa and I and three other people. Here's a beautiful shot of a small lake near where we had a lunch after spending the morning in the park from daybreak till about 2 pm. Now that the people pictures are over, it's back to the nature tour. This is a shot of a dead tree that has been ripped open by a bear searching for food. When trees fall, they're soon filled by a variety of insects that feast on the rotting wood. Bears rip open the trees in the summer to have their own meals of insects. Here's some more evidence of bears searching for food. This bear track was made on a large anthill. The bear stood with its back paws on the hill as it dug into the ground with its claws to get at the main colony of ants. The ants, of course, get caught up in the bear's fur, so the bear then sits down and licks off all the ants for a nice meal. Pronghorn sheep are the second fastest land mammal alive. Only the cheetah is faster, and since there are no cheetah any more in North America, the Pronghorn have no predators who can come close to their speed, making them one of the park's most prevalent inhabitants. Their weakness is that their young take several days to mature, leaving them vulnerable to predators at birth. This is a shot of a pronghorn as it moves through a meadow in the park. A shot of several young pronghorn romping in a meadow in Grand Teton National Park. We came across the small herd of pronghorn as we were driving back to Jackson after our day in the park. Click here for the chase between an eagle and an osprey.>

© 2009 by Stephen Caswell. All Rights Reserved.