Lamar Valley is another famous wildlife viewing place within Yellowstone National Park. It is located at Northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park and its size is also much larger than Hayden Valley. Visitors can spot elks, pronghorns, bisons, wolves, and bears here. Many wildlife enthusiasts come here before dawn and wait for wildlife to show up just so that they can get a glimpse of them.
Lamar Valley is quite far from where we stayed at around Old Faithful. It took us nearly 2 hours to get to Lamar Valley. It was already 8AM in the morning when we arrived and the sun was already high in the sky. As we drove through Lamar Valley, we could already see herds of bisons on the side of the road. It was a beautiful sight. These bisons were simply not afraid of humans or cars. As we proceed further, there were bisons crossing the road and thus we had to stop the car. One bison calf actually started feeding on its mom and thus the road was blocked for a long time.
We continued on to drive through Lamar Valley. On one of the pull outs, we pulled over and saw several pronghorns running across the field. We were told these pronghorns are one of the fastest mammals in Yellowstone National Park. They did indeed run very fast across the field. Unfortunately they were quite far and we could only spot it with our binocular.
As we got to Lamar Valley Overlook, many people have been here trying to spot other wildlife animals. There is a wolf den just down the valley by the river. We quickly moved to the top of the hill where everyone was and trying to see if we could spot a wolf or 2. Then we saw a Grey Wolf showing up on the field. It was running back and forth freely. Not quite sure what it was doing but it was an amazing sight to see a wild wolf for the first time. The wolf was quite far away, we wish we had super zoom lens with us.
As we were so focused on looking at the lone wolf, a lone bison sneaked up on us on the side. We did not even noticed until it got so closed. We were surprised by it and didn't know what to do. The bison seemed to be waiting for us to move away so that he could pass through. Thus we all moved backwards by 20 meters or so. The bison then started moving forward and crossed the field right in front of us. We were so worried that the bison was going to charge at it and luckily it didn't. It was our first time being so close to the bison and could see every single detail of its body.
We then went back to look at the wolf. The wolf was still there, just running around its wolf den. Not sure if there was any pups in there. After a while, the wolf headed over to the river and disappeared in our sight.
It was a great experience at Lamar Valley. We were really glad to see the wolf there. Compared to Hayden Valley, there were really a lot more wildlife here, just that the scenery is not as beautiful.
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