The other day I decided that I would return to Yellowstone for a day or so before returning to PA.

I left Choteau Thursday morning and headed to the park. When I arrived I went straight for Lamar Valley and immediately saw a griz at about 200 yards. I got the "oh you should have been here 10 minutes ago" comments from others along the road.

I continued on up the valley and saw several herds of elk and some coyotes. I ended up back at Mammoth where I stayed at he campground. All the services there had pretty much shut down for the season so I headed into Gardner for dinner.

Friday morning I headed out right away to Lamar once again. I arrived at the spot where the valley opens up and there were a ton of people already there. There had just been a griz near the road. Of course he was down in the bottom of the valley near the river now.

It was still pretty cool thou because within several hundred yards of each other there was a grizzly, two pronghorns, two groups of elk and two wolves. I took a few shots but everything was really to far away to make for good images.

Again I drove the valley and didn't find anything more. So I took off and headed for other parts of the park. It was a really slow day both people and animal wise. So I hit the lower falls via the very icy Uncle Tom's trail. I got some cool shots of the falls.

After I was done there I was torn as to what to do. As much as I love Lamar I was really tired of looking through spotting scopes and seeing dots. There wasn't much going on anywhere in the park so I said I have had enough (hard to believe) and decided to head to Grand Tetons and Jackson.

In the end it was the right way to go. I first ran into three coyotes and spent some time shooting them. Then I moved on and not far before Lewis Lake I ran into what was obviously a bear jam. Not many cars only three or four but everyone just stopped in their lanes and bailed from their cars.

As I got closer and parked in a more appropriate area I could see what the fuss was about. It was a huge silvertip griz. I got a couple of shots off and then it disappeared into the woods. As I stood there along the road talking to another photographer I caught a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and boom there is the bear at 40 feet and closing fast.

It wasn't aggressive but moving with a bit of a purpose. Lucky for us a car was going by slowly so we ducked behind it and got out of dodge. We spent the next half hour photographing the bear in the nearby meadow.

After that it was on to GTNP and Jackson.

Well the trip has finally come to an end. Tomorrow I head back to PA. As much as I love it out here I can’t wait to get back to my wife and daughter.