Woke up and packed up camp at Madison Campground. We ate some yoghurts and headed u to Lamar Valley again. The valley visit started with the closest bear encounter we had the entire time. We spotted a black bear along the road, down a little from the road. We watched it walk to a nearby pond and plop down in the water before we headed further down the valley again.
From there we were driving up a straight we part of the valley with an overlook of a meadow with a river, some brush and willows in the distance and a bunch of buffalo and pronghorn deer. Little did we know that in the distance and cover of the willows were 6 grizzly bears.
The first bear we spotted off the to left, walking around a patch of snow near the deer. We spotted a sow and a cub on the opposite side of the space. Mom and cub were wrestling and snoozing in the afternoon sun along yu the river. Soon enough a women we were watching the scene with said “hey I think I see another bear maybe?”. We all looked for a little while and came to the conclusion that it was indeed another bear. To our surprise however, it wasn’t 1 bear, but it was rather 3. Another sow with 2 adolescent cubs were nearing the first mom with 1 cub. A little while later we were watching the second sow send her 2 cubs towards the other 2 bears, mom one and 2 cubs engaging in a face off. We were lucky but also not lucky enough to see a bear fight so it remained peaceful while we were there. All the bears went separate ways within the same area, not engaging with one another anymore, but also not fighting over territory. Shortly after, the first lone bear started making it’s way over towards the right where the 5 bears were located.
We all eagerly watched, speculating over what would happen. We then saw the lone bear stare over towards the 5, and then dart away, back the other way, the pronghorn deer moving quickly with the bear. We all watched for a little longer but all bears had disappeared back into the brush so we headed up the valley a little more before heading back down and out towards our spot for the night.
We made it to the Yellowstone Hot Springs and set up camp with our tent about 10 feet away from the Gibbon River. I made a camp fire, Noey made some tofu stir fry and we enjoyed the fire and a few games of Yahtzee. We planned to enjoy the hot springs the next day after a good nights rest.