Our brand new Yellowstone Wolves and Snowshoeing Vacation we ran in February sold out within a week of announcing it. We are thus pleased to add a new October 23 – 27, 2021 Yellowstone Wolf Watching Tour With Hiking.
We say it all over this site but it is worth repeating: Yellowstone National Park is the Best National Park in the World and Yellowstone is the Best Place in the World to See Wolves in the Wild.
So rather than repeat those claims here, we’ll focus on why Yellowstone this October will be the place to be.
Yellowstone in the Fall
You might have heard winter is the best season to view wolves in Yellowstone. This is true for two reasons:
- Wolves (especially those with black coats) are easier to spot in the snow
- Ungulates (hooved animals such as elk) come down from the mountains to the Lamar Valley to avoid the deep snows and wolves follow their prey
In the second half of October, both these factors are already in effect. Yellowstone is at a high elevation and there is generally snow on the ground in the mountains and very likely (in small amounts) in the valleys. October is a good time to see wolves in Yellowstone.
Wolf Pups
A major difference between February when we run our snowshoe tours and October when we will run this hiking tour is the family cycle of wolf packs. Wolves generally breed in mid-February and give birth in mid-April, which means on our February wolf watching tour the pups are now almost yearlings and approaching full size. In October, those pups are only six months old.
At six months, the pups are still clearly visible as smaller and act like pups, romping and playing around. Yet they are developed enough to travel with the pack rather than staying near the den site. While we can’t guarantee anything, October is an excellent month to see wolf pups in the wild.
Yellowstone Wolf Watching Tour – With Hiking
On our October 23 – 27 tour, we will again have the company of wolf biologist Jon Trapp for two days. The difference this time is we will be hiking rather than snowshoeing. But the scheme is still the same. We will get up early so we can be out on the roads and trails in time to see the wolves when they are most active. We’ll do hikes in the park to visit an old wolf den and one of the original acclimation pens. We’ll take time to see the natural geothermal features as well.
This trip is limited to 10 people due to group capacity limits in Yellowstone. It will be run in conjunction with our sister company, Zephyr Adventures.
