Just Ducky!

I love spring in Yellowstone National Park! Everything is so lush and green, the babies are beginning to arrive, and entrances that have been closed for the winter are starting to reopen. 

The road from the Chief Joseph Highway to Cooke City opened up this week, so the northeast entrance was the obvious choice for this trip. I was a little concerned when we got up yesterday morning to cloudy skies and light rain. Home is at 3,500 feet and the Chief Joe tops out at just over 8,000. If it's raining at home... well, you get the picture. My apprehension was not eased at all as we drove closer to the mountains. They were not even visible. We began our climb and quickly found ourselves swallowed up by the clouds. We never did encounter falling snow, but we were pulling out cameras when the snow-frosted trees emerged from the shroud. I intended to photograph the trees, but got distracted by the flowers. 

Our first destination stop was Trout Lake. I was a little agitated to discover six or eight cars and a dozen people in the parking lot. But we quickly started up the "back way" and left the rest behind. Imagine my surprise when we broke out of the trees surrounding Buck Lake in absolute solitude. We spent probably an hour photographing the lake and the ducks. We eventually made our way over to Trout Lake and down the trail back to the car. 

Beautiful Buck Lake

Someday, I am going to get a really good picture of a mallard.
They are my favorite!

I'm not sure what these ducks are called,
but they are plentiful in YNP.

There was no solitude when we reached Tower Junction. I knew that people had been seeing bears, so I was not surprised at the bear jam. Fortunately, the bears were not far up the road, so we parked and I walked up to join the crowd. As expected, I found a mama bear with three cubs! I was enjoying watching them, but it was starting to rain, so I returned to the car. 

Of the three cubs, this one was hanging closest to Mama.
The other two had already wandered off to play somewhere out of sight. 

Just a few miles later, we spotted a big grizzly bruin. He was out of sight by the time we got pulled over and got the cameras out, but we caught up with him when he flopped out in a mud puddle. Then he got up again and lumbered off into the trees. 

After a short wait in a buffalo jam, we decided that we were hungry, so we made our way into Gardiner. The sun came out as we were leaving and sealed the day with a rainbow. 

*** BONUS PICS ***