*Sept 2008* 

      I am beginning to mark the seasons by trips to Yellowstone. I drove through the arches in September 1998, and never stopped coming back.
   I caught my first glimpse of the Druid Peak wolf pack that year - 21M and 40F, the alpha pair then. It was only for a brief five minutes, watching them trot along the edge of the tree line near Amethyst Bench in Lamar Valley. It was what I came for back then, my first wolves in the wild, but now wolves are not the only reason I am drawn back - once, twice, sometimes three times each year.
   In Spring there are the first bison calves tottering on long spindly legs, then running in circles around each other; the sandhill cranes who build their nest each year in the middle of floating island lake; seeing a cow elk lick her just born elk calf in the meadows high above the Yellowstone River; a black bear playing with her only cub, swatting him gently, then settling down to nurse. We follow wolves and coyotes traveling back and forth from their dens, totally occupied with raising the next generation, and are startled by the roar of an avalanche, watching snow and ice cascade down a mountain right across from our cabin porch.
   I have caught the tail end of summer, where the days' heat fades into cool mornings and evenings, then bursts into the colors of autumn. Aspen are on fire as grass yellows and elk make their way down to the valleys from the high plateaus, the wolves following. The Park echoes with elk bugling and wolves howling, the songs of the wilderness. Grizzlies forage in the meadows and on the hillsides, eating their last meals before traveling to their dens for a long nap.
   Winter is miles of white silence punctuated by forests of tall dark green pines trees weaving down mountains and through the snow. The Lamar River is frozen, a long, winding mirror gliding through the valley and Little America. Bison scratch for food underneath blankets of snow and amble down the roads of the Park, as if they were paved for them. A fox dives for a vole beneath the snow. The silence is broken by wolves and coyotes, howling and yipping, looking for mates.
   All the years blend together and I am no longer able to separate them - one year, one season, one trip flowing into the next. I track the years by the wolves and the comings and goings of different packs. One pack travels out of the Park and a new pack emerges.
   This fall the Hayden alpha pair will be gone one year, the yearlings and pups scattered in different packs. 380F and 526F of the Sloughs are also gone, killed only weeks ago by wolves. 527F is near Hellroaring after spending the summer on the very northern edge of the Park. Maybe we will see her this time and maybe she will take her place back with the Sloughs. The Druids are strong, numbering over 30 wolves with this year's pups and the Mollies have been seen in smaller groups from Pelican Valley to Canyon to Swan Lake Flats. I don't know where 640F is, but I can only believe she is well and with the main pack. So the Park changes and stays the same; each trip is different and yet familiar - like seeing a new place and coming home at the same time

Christine Baleshta - September 2008