Luck of a Bobcat

Felines in Yellowstone — Mountain Lions, Bobcats, and Lynx — are some of the rarest animals to see in the park. A sighting of any of these three is incredibly lucky and an amazing experience. In winter 22/23 at Yellowstone there was a mule deer that fell off of the West Yellowstone lava flow. This sheer drop ended up killing the mule deer, but lured an elusive bobcat out of hiding. For almost two weeks this bobcat sat on the carcass 24/7. He definitely became a big celebrity in the park, every tour that passed by stopped to take a peak at this wild creature. 

This was my first winter in the park and during this season I was working in the gift shop. This meant my chances of getting to see the bobcat myself were pretty slim. So, Dan and I came up with a game plan: We would take the shuttle going north to Mammoth, get dropped off at the location of the bobcat, then cross-country ski the 16 miles back to Old Faithful. This was going to be a BIG day and my longest skiing adventure yet, but I knew it was one of the only ways I would be able to see the bobcat. So on our day off we rode with some guests that were leaving the park until we got to the Firehole Canyon Drive. After clipping into our skis we waved goodbye to our driver and went down the hill. It was pretty obvious where we needed to stop as there were about 50 different people camped out with cameras. While this was not an intimate wildlife experience it still was amazing. 

After about an hour we decided to start making our trek back home. We started back up the canyon drive before popping out on the main road. We followed this until we got to Fountain Flats drive and decided to take the Freight Road (a biking trail in summer) to the Fairy Falls trailhead. This way was a lot more difficult, but we got to see a bit of Yellowstone that most people do not see in winter. 

After a full day of skiing we finally made it back to Old Faithful. This was definitely one of the hardest adventures I had ever done, but it was worth every second. One of the reasons that I was so interested in going to Yellowstone was so that I could go on these wild adventures and see amazing sights. Seeing this bobcat certainly falls into those categories.