The last complete ecosystem in North America: Yellowstone National Park. That’s where I vacationed this past week and missed three days of school. Catching up on work so far hasn’t been too bad, but I imagine the longer I take to make up everything, the more difficult it will get. The trip, however, was definitely worth the missed school.

     While there, I managed to catch a glimpse of everything from a badger to a grizzly bear. The first day I arrived, it was about 40 degrees and proceeded to snow roughly half a foot in the park, with less in lower elevations. We stayed in a town just outside the park entrance called Gardener, which is often frequented by elk, mule deer and pronghorn.

    One day we had a guide with us, but we got a few miles into the park and found out they had closed all of the roads due to how snowy it was. On top of that, there weren’t enough snow plows to reach all of the roads in a timely manner. We ended up spending about an hour waiting for the plow to come and clear the road we were next to, so it was possible to get down a hill without dying.

    My favorite part of the trip by far was the day we went out early over to Hayden Valley, in the hope of catching a glimpse of a pack of wolves. Spectacularly, I got the chance to see the largest pack of wolves in the park, with 20 members. They moved along a riverbank for a time, before going into the forest and out of sight. Later in the day my dad and I were sitting on a small overlook near Slough Creek when a pair of coyotes crested the hill and made their way towards us, hunting all the way. They very conveniently provided us with an excellent opportunity for pictures.

    All in all, it was very nice to escape the hot temperatures of Ohio in favor of snow and wildlife.