I adjust my departure time this morning, leaving at 6:30. It’s still warmish, at 34 degrees.

The local fox is hunting at the roads edge across from Laurie’s.

At Trash Can I make my usual stop to listen in the dark. I also stop at Dorothy’s in case the Junctions might have travelled to Jasper from Slough.

But I hear only coyotes.

I continue west and see Helena’s car at Slough. She is about to climb up Dave’s. I stop to say hi and we commiserate about the four wolves lost in the hunt.

A bison herd crosses the Lamar Bridge heading east. I am able to encourage them into one lane so I can slowly pass.

We watchers spread out, trying to find the Junctions. I scope from Boulder for a while, then decide to go to Elk Creek to look up on Specimen.

Stacy is already here. Just as I pull in, he finds them.

It’s a very hard spot, since we are looking into the sun. Today I could use some cloud cover! It takes a while, but I eventually see three black wolves in a rally. They are so far away they look like ants.

Lynette and I name a narrow meadow surrounded by trees “the runway” for easier identification. My three wolves are in a clearing just west of the western end of this “runway”. The area is above a hill that descends steeply down to the Yellowstone corridor.

Lynette sees a few other wolves at the forest’s edge but I miss them.

When Stacy first saw them, he saw elk running well ahead of maybe 7 or 8 wolves. The wolves were never close to the elk. They then stalled out and milled around a bit, then quickly disappeared into the trees.

I see a single black walking around at the lower edge of the runway itself, but I don’t know if it’s one of the three I saw in the rally or a separate wolf.

Then I see another single black at the upper edge of the runway to the right. But again, I don’t know if this is a “new” wolf or one of my original three.

This wolf beds down and stays in view long enough for us to show a few visitors that arrive.

This wolf gets up and moves out of sight. Suddenly we have no wolves at all.

Calvin and Lynette suggest we try driving up to Calcite Overlook, so I follow them. (The Dunraven road is open for a few more days as far as the Tower Store but the rest of the way is already closed for the season)

I carry my scope up the boardwalk stairs to the overlook platform. The view is quite good. We can see the “runway”, quite a bit closer from here, as well as other areas of Specimen Ridge/Plateau.

But we find no wolves, neither bedded nor moving.

A chipmunk scurries by, disappointed to find that we are not the kind of visitors who are willing to toss him food.

Around 10:45 I pack up and head east.

On my way back I notice the Baronette pullout is completely empty, so I stop to scope for goats. I find a single billy near a thin waterfall.

After a break in Silver Gate, I return to the valley at 3PM. A light, wet snow is falling. The top third of the high slopes are now shrouded in snow-fog.

I join Dale & Fay at upper Elk creek. Just before I arrive, they had a brief glimpse of some wolves in the same area we saw them this morning.

Fay got video and I look over her shoulder. It shows eight wolves crossing the “runway”, heading downslope. She says they continued towards the Yellowstone and were soon out of sight.

We scope a while longer but have no luck. I notice that the skies have become gray, which suggests snow to come. It’s still very warm, at 43 degrees, but I bet the high peaks will be whiter tomorrow.

Around 6PM I head back east, stopping briefly to enjoy a few pronghorn at the east end of Junction Butte

Other than the three cars watching these ungulates, I meet no others through the rest of Little America. And I have all of Lamar Valley to myself.

It is SO nice to feel the emptiness after a summer and early fall of crowds.

As I round the turn at Hitching Post, I see all the fingers of Mt. Norris are already whitened. Druid peak, too. It looks really nice.

There is no ground level accumulation yet, until I get to the “Entering Montana” sign.

Today I saw: bison, a chipmunk, a mountain goat, pronghorn, 3-5 wolves (far-away Junctions) and the spirits of Allison, Richard, Jeff and Chloe.