Sunday, May 21, 2017

YNP Pre-Season River Check & Wildlife

Wednesday May 17th, it was rainy all day, and eventually turned out to be wet snow. In the evening and overnight, we have had several inches of snow on the ground, vehicles, anywhere!! It seems Livingston got hit the heaviest in the entire area. Since then it has been a series of cool weather. This subsided runoffs of rivers around here.

Also it's just a week before Yellowstone National Park fishing season open on Saturday May 27th. So we planned a round trip to check major rivers in the Park.

Soda Butte Creek was surprisingly almost all "fishable green". Really. It's only "As of now". Repeat: it has been cool days, once day-time temp reaches back to around 70F, it will change. So is Lamar River.
Slough Creek below campground. This lovely creek doesn't get really muddy during summer storms. It's certainly running very high.
Very much the same story on the west side. We checked Gibbon, Firehole, and Madison Rivers. These rivers had good clarity. But then again, we shouldn't be too optimistic for the opening day. Keep our eyes on weather patterns and changes on hydrographs through week.
It also turned out to be one of the best wildlife spotting days we've ever experienced in the Park😎🐂🐻🐾(apparently there aren't enough Emoji's to cover all😓). This is the time of year when I can do something other than actual fishing. Also the summer tourism has not begun yet and lots of wildlife still remain in lower elevation.

Starting with a coyote.
 A regular one
We, along with many other people, were supposedly looking at a bear behind Lamar buffalo😓
 It looked like a relatively large black bear along the road.
Then we observed a large traffic congestion (it's nowhere close to what we have during the summer months😑😐) at around Norris Campground. It was a pair of mother-cub grizzly bear😲 ❗❗
Up until this day, we've never seen "Griz" in the Park.



One more 'Yote.
 As we drove along Firehole River, we stopped by Fountain Hot Paint Access
And Midway Geyser Access (here's Grand Prismatic Spring).  These sightseeing spots will be oblivion once the fishing season kicks off........ It was quite fun!! - actually the very first time for me!!

Yellow Belly Mormot  (common name around here Rock Chuck)
As we got out of the Park from West Gate, headed north, and re-entered a short section of the Park along Gallatin River. We spotted another rare kind - Moose😲❗

Bye👋
What a great day to check both rivers and wildlife!! Especially for the wildlife part, we've done very well for a while😎!! Now high hopes for the fishing season 2017😁

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