TIME-TEMPERATURE- WEATHER:

Early AM (first light-9AM): 34 (much cooler, yay!) at 4:40 in SG

Late AM (9-noon) Temp not recorded but more 65-70 than 80

Evening: 4:30-9PM very pleasant, 70

CROWD: very busy, but normal this time of year

SUMMARY FOR THE DAY: Today was cooler, weather-wise. I saw two Mollies (both grays, one collared) then watched coyote pups from the Ranch. In the evening Laurie & Dan and I saw the uncollared Mollie from this morning traveling back to the den area on the south side of SB Creek.

WOLF SIGHTINGS (total; pack; individuals, pullout, time of day): 2 wolves total, both Mollies

2 Mollies (both gray, one collared; two north of the road in the AM from SB midpoint. Then one traveling back to the den area from the east seen from Footbridge in the evening. I am pretty sure I saw the uncollared gray both AM and PM.

NON-WOLF SIGHTINGS (what & where)

Grizzly: a courting pair of grizzlies north of the road in SBV, from SB midpoint in the morning on the same hill as the wolves.

Bison: More than ever, maybe two thousand in Lamar Valley alone.

Coyote: Five pups at the Ranger Rock den with one adult in the late morning from roadside. In the evening, from Confluence East, we spot two coyotes, looking for opportunities in the river bottoms

Sandhill crane: a pair of cranes with a single colt walk the flats south of the Ranch, late morning

Mule deer: In the high meadows early this morning and again in the evening coming back to SG

Elk: Evening from Confluence East, we find an elk cow in the river bottoms

Geese: Lamar

Mountain Goat: one, in the evening from Round Prairie, looking south.

Moose: in the evening we see the handsome young bull at Warm Creek again on the way back to SG

Pronghorn: various usual places

EARLY MORNING HIGHLIGHTS (first light-approx 9AM) My first stop is at Confluence East where Paul is already hope-scoping for Mollies pups and adults.

We hear a call from a guide (Unit 293). Shes at SB midpoint with two bears and two wolves to the north.

Paul and I arrive in time to see them. They are Mollies one collared and one not. I first see them moving upslope to the tree line. The guide says they crossed the road from the south 15 minutes ago.

Many people arrive, but the wolves go out of sight pretty quickly, trending east and upslope.

Knowing how quickly wolves can travel, I swing my scope far to the east and find one gray climbing a hill that eventually leads to Trout Lake. I don’t see the second one, so perhaps that wolf already topped out.

Paul and I grin at each other, glad to have made it in time. We also see the two bears. One is the sow who we mated last night with the big boar up on Mt. Norris. This is a different male she’s with today. You go, girl!

Paul and I go back to Confluence East where Laurie and Dan join us.

We scope a while from here, but I dislike having my scope blocked by passing cars. I relocate to Hitching Post and walk out on the rolling hills.

LATE MORNING HIGHLIGHTS (approx 9AM-12 noon) We hear various radio reports of a gray or two grays being sighted in eastern Lamar, and we try several locations to try to see them. We never do. We learn later from an experienced guide, that the grays were not wolves anyway, but coyotes.

So, we drive to the Ranch and end up spending over an hour watching the darling coyote pups.

They seem to be enjoying this cool morning as much as we are. An adult arrives from the east bringing food, which they gobble down. The adult goes upslope of Ranger Rock and beds down.

To the south we find a pair of sandhills with a colt, the first one I’ve seen this year.

The bison are so plentiful today, they seem to carpet the entire Lamar valley as well as its foothills both north and south. I think there could be two thousand of them, and each one with a calf!

Around 10AM, Bill radios from Dorothys that he sees wolves above Jasper in the Salad Bowl. We cannot see that area from the roadside here, so we drive to join him. Alas, we are too late. Bill says they were only in view a few minutes before they disappeared into the trees behind the bench.

We head in around noon.

EVENING HIGHLIGHTS (approx 4:30PM-9PM) Laurie & Dan and I go out again around 5:30. I stop at Round Prairie to look for goats. I see one to the south just as it goes over the top.

We set up at Confluence East to look for Mollies pups. No mating bears to watch this evening. Krisztina joins us and we have a good visit. We find an elk cow in the river bottoms and a couple of coyotes, but no wolves.

Guide Audra stops to say hi, then continues east. We are just about to call it a night when Audra radios that a gray wolf just crossed the road to the south ahead of her east of the SB Cone.

Laurie, Dan & Krizstina join Audra at the Cone while I go to Footbridge. I am confident the wolf will pass through here on its way back to the den area.

I enlist the help of several people in the lot with younger eyes than mine. We scan the area to the south.

Sure enough, an eagle eyed visitor spots the gray, above SB Creek right at the bottom of the rolling hills which are south of the Cone.

Lots of people get eyes on him as he trots briskly west, getting closer and closer. It’s a Mollies wolf, most likely the uncollared gray I saw heading east this morning.

Looks to me like he is now returning to the pups.

People in the lot are thrilled to see this wolf and thank me for tipping them off. Despite the fact that this wolf is taking a route that SHOULD be easy to follow, he is out of sight more often than in sight.

I have to keep moving my scope to anticipate his next appearance. Finally I have him for a solid five minutes as he approaches the eastern end of DPH. All too soon he reaches the trees and disappears.

Laurie and Dan and Krisztina arrive but we never spot him once he’s on the hill.

This sighting is evidence of why we so rarely see the Mollie’s coming and going from their new location. There is just enough cover to hide them, and they use it well.

The light is fading so we head back east. At Warm Creek we see the handsome young bull moose again.

TODAY I SAW: 2 grizzlies, bison (and calves), coyotes (including 5 pups), sandhill cranes (and a colt), mule deer, elk, a mountain goat, a moose, pronghorn, 2 Mollies wolves (both gray, one collared; I think the uncollared gray that I saw in the morning was the same uncollared one I saw in the evening) and the spirits of Allison, Richard, Jeff and Chloe.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER:

DF: Diagonal Forest (a feature east of the Slough den)

DPH: Dead Puppy Hill; the partly treed hill below the crest of Mt. Norris immediately south of Footbridge pullout. Named by coyote researchers before the 1995 wolf reintroduction. The hill has been a popular area with local wolf packs since wolves were reintroduced. It has held several coyote dens over the years, but to my knowledge, this year is the first time a wolf pack has denned on it. The Mollies chose an area on the hill’s western slope above the new growth forest, and produced at least two pups, one black and one gray, which were seen infrequently during June.

HF: Horizontal Forest (another feather east of the Slough den

HR: Hellroaring (large overlook pullout on the Blacktail)

LCW: Lamar Canyon West (pullout on the western side of Lamar Canyon) that overlooks a lot of, but not all of, the area wolves use at Slough.

MST: Marge Simpson Tree (distinctive tree in Slough Flats) In 2024, the Junctions used the meadows below and left of Marge as their August-October rendezvous.

OGR: The OGR Old Gardiner Road (current name for the new road hastily constructed after the 2022 flood on top of the former gravel road between Mammoth and Gardiner)

RP: Round Prairie (big meadow south of Pebble Creek campground)

SB: Soda Butte (or SBV Soda Butte Valley) where Soda Butte Creek flows between Round Prairie and its Confluence with the Lamar River)

SG: Silver Gate (small town just outside the northeast Park entrance)

SRT: Southern Round Tree (distinctive tree south of the Marge Simpson Tree)

UCG: Un-collared gray (Junction 2 yr-old bouncy male). Born to the Rescue Creek Pack, he joined the Junction Pack sometime in February 2025.

YGM: Yellow Grass Meadow (a feature east of and upslope of the Horizontal forest at Slough)