I head down to the valley for my last morning in 41 warmish degrees.

I go straight to Slough and climb up Dave’s Hill, joining Frank and a few others.

We find two black wolves in the rendezvous which we assume are the two homebody pups.

But a little later, a third wolf joins them. As they begin to move about and interact, it becomes obvious that only one of the three is a pup. The other two are adults; the black male and a wolf we initially think is 1386F.

The three are quite playful together. They move slowly through the thick sage towards the creek. The black male plans an ambush and bursts out at the other two, leaping over the back of 1386.

They move into the flats, heading towards the fallen Stephen King tree. The sun peeks over the hill and its rays glint on a metal collar of the adult female.

We know 1386 lost her collar and we don’t think this is 1479, so it must be 1385.

The three continue to travel together, passing through the lower lion meadow, making steady progress east, but still at a fairly casual pace.

They pass below the Horizontal forest and the Zig Zag meadows. Just like the leader group yesterday, they stay low, paralleling the yellow grass meadow.

We lose them a while, then Rick finds them once more as they cross a sparsely-forested rocky knob, then dropping over the far side.

By 9AM we have no wolves left.

Some of us stay on the hill a while, chatting and discussing wolf matters, reluctant to leave. Then we make our way down to our cars.

Rick gives me his latest book and signs it with a nice personal comment. Missy and Andy and I are heading back to Bozeman but they need to stop somewhere for coffee first. Their wi-fi was back on this morning but the power was out!

I head down the campground road to visit with Mark & Carol. We’ve seen the same wolf activity for three days but from different locations!

It’s just past 10AM when I say my final goodbyes to my buds and head west. I see very few animals on the way, other than a mule deer doe with two fawns near the Tower Ranger station.

I arrive in Gardiner and join Missy and Andy at Wonderland, savoring our last half hour in the Park we love so much.

Today I saw: bison, a coyote, mule deer, two bald eagles, elk, pronghorn, 3 Junction wolves (including 1 black pup, black male and 1385F) and the spirits of Allison, Richard, Jeff and Chloe.