Twenty Years in Yellowstone (Slough)

Today is my wife’s and my 20th wedding anniversary…at least the first of three. We decided to head up to Slough Creek and the Lamar Valley today which is in the Northeast side of Yellowstone, because it’s another place the wolf lady said we could see bears, wolves, big horn sheep, and mountain goats. We didn’t explore this area the last time we were here, because of the inclement weather. Now, I wish we had.

My wife decided to pull over along the way, because her hand was hurting her, and Troy and I got out to explore a little. There happened to be a trailhead nearby, so we trekked off across a field and into the trees. The trail was really cool, as it wound its way up and down and around the forest. There were fallen trees everywhere and new trees had sprung up to take their place. Troy picked up some small branches and told me that he’d protect me if we saw any dangerous wildlife like a bear, or wolf, or chipmunk with big ideas. We did see a chipmunk, but he took off the other direction (probably because he saw Troy meant business). The only other thing we saw was a few squirrels.

We hiked for about half an hour before I said we needed to turn back. Troy wanted to keep going, and to be perfectly honest, I did too. But my wife called me to ask when we were coming back, so we reluctantly turned around. I love sharing the great outdoors with Troy, but I realized one of the drawbacks to hiking with a four-year old. He walks incredibly slow and wants to stop to whack every tree, log, rock, piece of grass, and imaginary animal with his stick along the way. I just want to keep walking and feel a good burn in my legs. So, we were at odds all the way back.

With the unexpected hiking detour, it was lunchtime by the time we finally made it to the Slough Creek area. So, we stopped and had some sandwiches by the side of the road before heading on to the little dirt road that would lead us to Slough Creek. The dirt road dead-ended at the campground and horse stables. Along the way, we saw…nothing. Not a single animal.

There was a trailhead nearby, so I decided to give it a hike while my wife and son napped in the car. The trail ascended up the side of the mountain before descending down into the valley on the other side. The valley was a golden grassland spread around a winding river that let out into a lake. It was beautiful and picturesque with the mountains rising majestically around me. I caught a glimpse of a bald eagle as it soared by in the distance, and there was a bison herd camped out by the river. Other than that, I only saw a few chipmunks and squirrels.

I was reading later that this particular hike is well-known for the abundant wildlife that can be seen in the area. There’s grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, pronghorn, big horn sheep, mountain goats, elk, and bison. I’m not sure what they’re talking about, because only the bison came out for me. I made my way back to the car, and we headed down through the rest of Lamar Valley. And we found…

Bison by the hundreds. Collected herds were on every hillside, every plain, and even along the roads. Several times we had to stop as they crossed in front of the cars. The bulls were bellowing, the calves were frolicking in the tall grasses, and the cows were trying to stay away from the bulls’ sniffing amorous gestures. It was really cool and more like what we remember from the last time.

As the sun started to go down, we decided to head back curving around through Mammoth Springs to complete the loop. As we neared the edge of town, a giant elk buck was standing in the middle of the road while does crossed the road behind him. The “crossing guard” started to bugle as the cars piled up in front of him. And when all of the does had crossed, he slowly moved off the road and let us pass. It was awesome.

We grabbed dinner at the Terrace Grill in town and headed back through the rest of the park in the dark. Not exactly what we planned for the day, but cool nonetheless.