Lamar Valley is known for its herds of bison and the successful reintroduction of wolves. Conventional wisdom says the animals are most active at the start and end of the day, so we made coffee to go and entered the valley a bit before eight.
Almost immediately we started seeing bison. Hooray! We also encountered our first “bison jam”, where the vehicles need to wait for the animals to cross the road. Our primary hike was the Lamar Valley Trail, one of those hikes that you can make as long as you want. It’s out in the open and the land is quite dry, mostly grass and sagebrush. Unfortunately we didn’t see much wildlife. After consulting with some people headed in the opposite direction we decided to end the hike early, covering a total of 6.5 miles. There was also a small panic when one of Soren’s hand-crafted Pokemon disappeared. Thankfully it was in a recent photo so we could narrow down a search region to find it.
We took the short, steep hike up to Trout Lake to have our lunch. It was a sweet little picnic place, and the walk around the lake was lovely. Instead of continuing further into the valley we decided to start driving back. It was nice to see more bison on the return trip, including a wee one.
I was curious to see Roosevelt Lodge, as it’s the place for horse rides and cabins that book up a year in advance. It was cute and the ice cream bars were reasonably priced. For people spending more time in Lamar Valley this seems like the best place to stay. Maybe next time I’ll book early and pack the big camera!
Our guidebook led us to a few quick stops: Calcite Springs, Tower Falls, and Petrified Tree. We agreed that we wanted to re-visit Mammoth Terraces, where we started the trip. It was nice to take it in at a different pace. A bonus was a magnificent elk wandering around the buildings.
22 738 steps
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