Hunter_59

We saw moose along the Madison river on the West side of the park and along the Snake river going to Jackson Hole. I hear the wolves have damaged the moose population severely. If you want to really experience Yellowstone, get out of the car and do some hiking on the trails into the backcountry. The last trip we made there, we hiked into the Pelican Valley. About a mile from the car we found a fresh bison pile with a huge grizzly hind footprint in the middle of it. Talk about the hair standing up on the back of your neck! You will never be more aware of your surroundings than at a time like that!
Probably less than 10 % of Yellowstone visitors venture more than a few yards from the roads or parking lots. A lot is missed because of that. It's a humbling experience to know you are not at the top of the food chain! Either way you will have a great trip!

WVhllbilly

It can snow in Yellowstone in any month of the year. Animals are everywhere you turn you can't avoid them if you wanted to. Every square inch of Yellowstone is a kodak moment. Was there the first week in July seemed like a good time of year, a good time to get some fishing in but a little to early to fish some areas, still some snow melt runoff.

petersavvy

You could check out this itinerary, it can save you a lot of hassle.

buffybr

This is a 5 year old thread, so I hope the OP had a good visit to Yellowstone.

I live about 100 miles north of Yellowstone, and I usually make a couple of visits to the Park every year. My last visit was earlier this month, and the Park had just opened their newly remodeled visitor center in Mammoth. The center was well done with many new displays, except for the mountain lion. That is one of the absolute worst taxidermy jobs that I have ever seen, and they labeled it with the Latin name of "puma concolor".

As others had posted, the river bottoms like the Lamar, Yellowstone, Firehole, and Madison are some of the best places to view the larger animals. Buffalo can be seen along most of them as can an occasional elk. Bighorn sheep used to be commonly seen on the hills above the Gardiner River between the town of Gardiner and Mammoth. There also used to be a herd of bighorns that wintered close to the junction of Pebble Creek and the Lamar River. There are usually a few elk in the Mammoth area, often in the yards of the buildings and houses.

Since the Park introduced the Canadian wolves in the mid 90s, the numbers of large animals, like elk, has fallen drastically. For example, the official count of elk in the Northern Yellowstone heard has gone from 22,000 plus animals before the introduction to less than 4,000 animals this year.

Its now very rare to see a bighorn in the Gardiner/Mammoth area, and the last time that I looked for sheep in the Lamar area, the Park had posted the sheep wintering area as closed to human entry to protect wolf denning.

It used to almost always see one or more moose in the willow flats in the upper Gallatin River/Cougar Creek area of the Northwestern corner of Yellowstone. Its been over 10 years since I've seen a moose there.

A number of years ago, the Park installed a high-tech laser system for several miles along the road next to the upper Gallatin River. This system would detect elk crossing the road, and flash warnings to motorists. They have since taken the system down as there are no longer the great herds of elk that used to cross there.

On a positive note, our last few trips to Yellowstone, we've seen three grizzly bears (or maybe the same bear on subsequent trips as two of the sightings were within a few miles of each other) and a black bear. All of these bears were within 1-200 yards of the road, and caused huge traffic jams.

A spotting scope and telephoto camera lenses are always helpful for good viewing and photographing wildlife.