Today… what a day! The weather was gorgeous, warm and melting the snow quickly so our plan to head to West Yellowstone was in full swing. The drive from Bozeman to West Yellowstone is about an hour and a half, but it doesn’t seem that long at all when you drive through Gallatin Canyon. What an amazing drive, especially today. Spring was definitely in the air.

Our plan when we arrived in West Yellowstone was to go to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. This place is small but wonderful, at least it is in my book. The center takes in Grizzlies and Wolves that have been orphaned through an unnatural process (mom was killed by a hunter, car, etc.) or takes in Grizzlies that have become to comfortable in a human environment. The alternative is generally to euthanize the animal or sending them to a zoo, if there is a zoo that will take them. Instead, these lucky animals end up in a place not far from their natural surroundings and seasons where they are cared for, loved and admired by employees and visitors.

Luckily, when we got there everything was quiet. West Yellowstone is just starting to open up again for the summer season and being there on a Friday keeps the crowds away. We basically had the place to ourselves, with the exception of a young girl, whom I was tempted to toss into the bear habitat, and her oblivious mother. I wont go into that mess of a story, but for those of you familiar with the story about a boy named Quentin… these two should meet up and go bowling sometime.

The grizzlies take turns in the large viewing habitat, so when we first arrived we were greeted by Kobuk and Nakina. These two are brother and sister and were orphaned when a hunter took their mother down while she was hunting free range chickens on his ranch. They had just been fed and seemed a little full as well as tired. Nakina kept out of sight, except for a few shots of her rear end, but Sam perched himself on a rock not far from us. He has such a sweet face and a funny personality, spending a lot of his time playing with several sticks that he found. Apparently he loves to climb trees and start chases around the habitat with his sister, but we pretty much saw the opposite of that. Oh well, Abby enjoyed that time a lot and seemed very much engrossed with the bears, that is until she realized she was allowed to walk around and not sit in her stroller.

After taking a ton of pictures of Kobuk we headed off to the two wolf habitats. I was in heaven! All of the wolves were out, for the most part, and were amazing. While I have seen wolves in the wild its nice to have an experience where you can be close to them and watch them interact without being scared off by some Yellowstone tourist that doesn’t know his rear end from his elbow. There was a naturalist on duty, who was able to point out the wolves, tell us their names and also tell us their rank in the pack. I couldn’t remember all of them, but I made my best effort to try and do so. You can see all of the pictures and information in the slide show below. I could talk endlessly about the wolves we saw and wolves in general, as they are my obsession, but I will spare you from that. Needless to say, watching both packs make me very happy and I was on a high when we left.

Before we left for the day, we stopped back by the bear habitat just in time to see the keepers place lunch around the area and see a new set of bears come out. The keepers place food in various spots around the habitat to keep the bears busy, both physically and mentally. When the doors opened I definitly was not expecting what was about to come strolling out. Sam and his sister Illie were orphaned as well and have lived their entire lives at the center. Sam, a Kodiak, weighs in at a whopping 1050 pounds and his sister comes in at 850. That’s almost double the size of Kobuk and Nakina, the two Grizzlies from earlier. They were impressive bears and I am glad there was plenty to separate me from them. The highlight was watching Sam try to get food out of a half frozen pond. Watching that bear put all of his weight on the ice and bounce up and down was incredible. Even more so was the sound of that ice breaking and buckling underneath him. Let’s just say it took him no more then 5 minutes to find what he was looking for. Amazing!

Illie, Sam’s sister had a beautiful heart shaped face. What a beautiful bear.

Before leaving we stopped in the gift shop so that Abby could enjoy the giant bear bench. She loved it and didn’t want to leave. We were lucky to even get a picture with her as she didn’t want to stop her play time to do such things. Play time with a giant bear is far more important then pictures!

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