A day for catching up on things we missed. We drove east again and on to our favourite unpaved road drive across the Blacktail Plateau. We stopped at a high point and just looked at the scenery, it was once again a beautiful day and the autumnal colours were beautiful.
On down to Tower then we headed south to Mount Washburn. It had an unpaved road to a bench on the shoulder of the mountain at nearly 9,000 feet. We wandered around a bit, looked at the trail to the summit (10,243 feet), then read the warning notices about the trail and got back in the car.
We went back again to the Hayden Valley, and once again a small group of people, accompanied by an off duty Ranger, had spotted a grizzly, but this time it was so far away that only the Rangers telescope could be used to identify it. We hung around for a bit but no further sightings and the bear got no closer.
We thought we should take one last look at the Lamar Valley, still plenty of bison, but no wolves or bears. We waited and watched as the light faded but no luck. We turned around and headed back. We came upon a crowd of people, many cars stopped by the side of the road and a Ranger trying to get people to move on. So what was all the excitement about? A black bear, or more precisely two bears, a mother and cub making there was through broken ground and mixed cover. Managed to get a couple of shots before they disappeared. Magical!
We'll nothing could really follow that! So we drove back to the hotel. It was dark by the time we got back to the hotel and as laundry duties and dinner called, we drove down the hill to Gardiner, washing first then a lovely dinner at The Raven. Such good food, a real find, Ruth tried the Buffalo Ragout and I the steak, the best cooked steak I had had in a long time.
