Game drives, in search of the Teton wolves

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Geo: 43.6558, -110.718

Up early for a game drive up Signal Mountain road. The clouds were beautiful that morning as well as the mountains but there was nary a bit a wildlife to be seen. Still it was beautiful and you are on top of the world in the Tetons without hiking. Sounds lazy doesn't it?
Got back to our campsite and two of the campground workers were at our site. As we pulled up, I had filled out a envelope for another night and was getting ready to place it on the post. They commented "oh you are paying for another night." Of course our boat was still in our space so it was fairly obvious we were staying another night but...........

Rant about their system of reserving your site: They pull tags at sites between 7-8am but checkout is not until 11am. If you go on early morning game drive and are self contained(like us) and leave nothing in your site, sticker is gone, who knows you are still technically in your site? So unless you re-up before you leave, so sorry or someone can pull you tag and say nothing there. Electric sites there now cut down on available sites for those who don't want to pay $45. Like the Mammoth system. At the campground host registration area, they have a small tag they put out at each site as it is registered and they do not remove it until 11am so people would not take your place. Enough of that now on to the good stuff.

We had been told by the backcountry ranger how to get to the place where you have a good chance of seeing the wolves. You drive out the Moran Junction and get on the road (Hwy 89?)that goes from Jackson Hole toward DuBois. Heading down toward Jackson you cross Buffalo Ford Bridge and then take the first left. You have to go through 3 low water crossings to come to Elk Ranch Reservoir. At the reservoir you see a sign that indicates the area in front of it is closed because of wolf activity. To the left of the sign is a path up Uni Hill where you can climb and see if you see any signs of wolves.

Before we had crossed the first of the low water crossings, a guy came from the other direction and asked us if we were getting ready to cross the low water crossing. We told him what we were hoping to find. He worked for the park managing the water release at the reservoir. We were surprised when we drove up because there were both cattle and bison in the field. His comment was the field was leased to the rancher but the bison did what they wanted. Had a few stories about the bison taking down fences. We asked him about brucellosis, a disease that ranchers have blamed bison for infecting their cattle with. He said it affects only the reproductive system of the female so all the cattle we were seeing were steers.

He said he had seen the wolves and they had seven pups. He said he had actually seen them hunting. One was watcher and the others hunted in group. Also told a story of a young bison killed by them and the mother bison stayed with the dead baby and would not let them approach. He had also seen grizzly tracks in the area but said would be safe to hike to the top of the hill because you are out in the open.

Told us we would have no trouble getting through the low water crossings but to take it slow to keep the water from getting up in the engine. While we were talking, the cows had come over to take look, walk into the water and generally just get in the way. Managed to get past them and on our way.

We walked out onto the edge of the reservoir to see what we could see. There were lots of ground squirrels, and a swan gliding across the reservoir. There were flickers moving about and raptors calling as they glided overhead but no wolves from where we were looking.
Back down and over to the next area where wolves might be found. This was traveling along the road by Spread Creek where it crosses into the Teton National Forest. This is also one of the areas where there is dispersed camping close to the entrance to the park. This was an interesting journey.

Looking at the map with Laura's superb map reading skills, it appeared this road went in a circle. We passed a gravel pit operation right at the edge of the park and the Teton National Forest and continued on. This is not a heavily traveled road and is fairly narrow. We passed a encampment of some sort with teepees, campers, tents, portapotties. Not quite sure what is happening here. The road continues on and on and on. Found a clearing with shade, nice view, and stopped to have lunch.

Continued on but then came to a gate so end of the road and had to turn around and head back. Went back to the Elk Reservoir to see what we might see for the evening. At one point a wedding party of 30 or so came up and climbed to the top of Uni Hill. Another group came up and we started talking to them. One of them, grandmother of the wedding party , came out to the Tetons every year and said she had seen the wolves but said we had to climb Uni Hill to be able to see them.

Finally called it an evening and headed back to our campsite.

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