Yellowstone: Where are the Animals?!?!

Sunday was a mixed bag of awesomeness and disappointment. Let me explain. We headed that morning to the Lamar Valley, which is renowned for it's wildlife. We were led to believe that we would see bison herds, bears, elk, wolves, and a host of other crazy Yellowstone wildlife. Sadly, we saw almost none of this. Spoiler alert: we did see them later, but that's a story for a different day. So, back to the awesomeness.

Passing through the Lamar Valley, we headed into the far northeastern corner of the park. There, we happened on the first "real" mountains that we'd seen in the park. And by "real" I mean craggy, alpine, snow-capped peaks. They were amazing! We also drove from the warm valley floor into a full-on snow storm. We took that as an opportunity to get out of the car and have a snowball fight!

Next, it was back to the valley floor, where we'd planned a hike up to Specimen Ridge, which is supposedly one of the finest hikes in the park. It's also an epic trek of about 18 miles, which is beyond our abilities. It was also getting late in the day. So, we figured we could at least climb up from the trailhead to the ridge. 

Halfway up, the clouds rolled in, along with the snow ...

We trudged up the steep hillside, now just a little bit afraid that maybe we were doing something stupid. It wouldn't be the first time we'd made a bad trail decision. We were happy to reach the tree line, which offered a little bit of shelter.

But, then the sun came back out again, and we continued up the hill to the very tippy top, where we experienced some absolutely amazing views!

The hike back down was less exciting, but still beautiful. And, on the way home - sure enough, the wildlife finally showed itself.