It’s a bright sunny day in Bozeman as I head to the park. It’s 12:50 pm, cloudless but cold at 19 degrees. Laurie and Dan stayed over last night and are about a half hour ahead of me.

The drive over the Pass is easy. There is a bit of slush in Livingston but the further south I go the road gets drier and drier. At Tom Miner basin I see elk, then bighorn and bison well before Gardiner.

It looks to me that the snow level is heavier than usual. I stop at the Market to buy ribs for dinner.

I head up the old/new road and have my visit with Allison, enjoying the view she has. As I wind down the last curve above Mammoth, I see many cars parked at the Everts Overlook. I find a spot and immediately recognize Calvin & Lynette manning their scopes.

We have a happy greeting. They have the Lupine pack bedded on one of the long fingers of Mt. Everts. With their help I manage to see three of them, 2 blacks and a gray, all bedded. Lynette says the other three are in the area but almost impossible to see right now.

We chat a bit more, then I continue east, seeing small groups of elk and bison along the way. The sun is blazing and makes the Park look great.

Lynette gave me a tip for where to look for Rescues from S Curves. “Left of the shed rock” she said, which I know is a very large boulder with a collection of elk antlers on top. This marker has been here for years. I think Frank told me years ago that someone gathered them but got busted before they could haul them out.

East of the ponds I begin to see evidence of drifting from recent snowstorms in the form of very high berms. They surround the S Curve pullout, too. Wow.

When I pull in, there are already two trucks here. I ask the closest guy “are you seeing wolves?” He smiles and says he just heard howling. So then one of my wolf-fantasies comes true. I point my scope towards the shed rock, pan a little bit east and…I’ve got a wolf!

Actually, at first, I see low boulders on a wind-swept knoll, but one of those rocks stands up, becoming a collared black. Then more and more rocks get up. I have a total of seven, including a collared gray. I suspect this is the newly collared gray female pup. I show the guy next to me, then alert the other couple in the second truck.

I suspect that the rest of the pack is here, too, likely bedded just out of sight over the hill.

The standing wolves gather for a greeting and a rally. All too soon they are moving southeast, out of sight. My timing is perfect, but it doesn’t last. Oh, how I wish it could always be this easy!

I continue east and have a mule deer cross to the south between Upper & Lower Hellroaring.

The snow level in Little America looks high, which is normal for this time of year. Lamar Valley looks even better. As I come down the hill from Dorothy’s the expanse of snow to the south is utterly pure white and unbroken. It looks gorgeous!

The Limping coyote greets me as I pass Picnic, poor thing.

I get to Laurie’s well before 5 and we settle down to a meal of ribs.

Today I saw: bison, coyote, mule deer, elk, bighorn sheep, 10 wolves, including 3 Lupines (including 2 blacks and a gray) and 7 Rescue Creek wolves (including one collared black and one collared gray and five others) and the spirits of Allison, Richard and Jeff.