Yellowstone 2026 Trip Report

My main goal for 2026 was to slow down a bit with international travel. I crisscrossed the globe way too much last year, so this year was all about staying local, and hopefully photographing some wildlife closer to home. That of course meant it was time for a trip to Yellowstone! I decided to visit in spring, which I hadn't done in a few years because I was worried about the crowds, but I knew that it would offer me the best wildlife viewing experience. So I packed my bags and headed off to America's first national park.

I had seen on social media that there was a ton of grizzly bear action down towards the southern part of the park near Lake Yellowstone, so on my first day in the park I made a beeline there first. As I turned around a bend I saw a gigantic line of cars parked, which was the the telltale sign that I was in the right place.

Not only was there a grizzly in a meadow on the side of the road, but there was a second one as well! This was mating pair which had been here for the last several days, and they had been giving people fantastic photo opportunities. Bears don't tend to do much besides forage 90% of the time, so they can be a bit boring photographically. But with mating bears their behavior is much more dynamic, and they gave me some awesome photos.

Now normally I would never leave a sighting like this. After all what could possible top mating grizzly bears? But then I got word that there was a wolf spotted close by in Hayden valley, and for me wolves trump literally everything else in Yellowstone so I jumped back in my car and sped off to see if I could catch a glimpse. Sadly I was too late to see the wolf cross the road, though it would later reappear way across the valley but too far for photos. I got a couple shots of a black bear to make up for it, but overall I couldn't complain about my first day in the park.

The next day the park got absolutely dumped with snow. I knew that it could snow even in spring, but honestly it felt like I was visiting in the middle of winter instead! Hayden Valley which had been completely bare less than a 8 hours earlier was now a winter wonderland. I spent some time photographing bison in the snow, and was very pleased with some of the shots I came away with.

Later that afternoon I headed back to the lake area to see if I could find any more grizzlies. I didn't just find one though, I found four! There were two separate males and females, with our honeymooners from the day before hanging out in the snow. I unfortunately arrived just a minute or two late, because the other male chased after the mating pair and sent them sprinting off into the woods. Then it was just him and the other female, who likewise wanted to escape from his advances when he got too close. Sadly the scene was beautiful with all the snow, but the light and distance made it just too hard to get any really good photos.

I hung around hoping that the grizzlies might come closer to the road for photos, but after several hours I had to admit defeat that it just wasn't going to happen.

As I started to make my way out of the park for the day, I saw a gigantic crowd of photographers in a field looking up, and that's when I saw it: a great grey owl. I had never seen one before, as they are often found deeper in the woods and I have no desire to hike out in bear country, but this one was right off the side of the road! I went to down to where the other photographers were, but they were hanging out so much farther away from where the owl was perched in a tree. Everyone absolutely could get closer without harassing it, but it seemed like no one wanted to be the first one to move closer and potentially scare it off lest the huge crowd turn on them.

Eventually it flew to another branch and most people left, at which point the more adventurous photographers hiked deeper towards the woods for a closer shot. And thank god I did because it led to some of the best shots of the entire trip for me.

Frozen bison, bears, and a great grey owl? This turned into a fantastic day in Yellowstone!

The next couple of days slowed down a bit. I had some fun shooting bison calves, a really close black bear sighting, and a super frustrating grizzly bear encounter. The grizzly bear I spent hours waiting for to come close to the road, and by the time it did the light was awful and there was so much heat distortion, so the shots weren't nearly as good as they could have been. With how rare it is to get that close to a grizzly, I was feeling a bit low. But that afternoon I got some information about an area to look for foxes, and after a little walk in the woods with some kind strangers, I found some fox kits! It was the exact win I needed and I was so grateful to enjoy it until the sun went down.

I usually come to Yellowstone for wolves, but this year was proving particularly challenging for them. Wolves will usually den in the spring which means that they will cross roads going to and from the den much more regularly. This leads to more consistent and predictable wolf sightings, which is why I would argue it's the best time to see them. However this year most of the packs in the park lost their puppies to an outbreak of canine distemper virus, meaning that they abandoned their dens and continued moving around as nomads. Suddenly the "predictable" wolves were back to being unpredictable.

I did see wolves a handful of times, but much too far for photos. At this point just seeing wolves doesn't cut it for me anymore. I would drive the valleys back and forth for several days hoping to get lucky that one would randomly cross the road, but that strategy just wasn't working so I eventually abandoned it.

I decided to pivot to some other subjects, and got a nice environmental bison sighting next to some thermal features, as well as a fox hunting by the side of the road.

Later in the afternoon I went back to look for grizzlies, and found a young sub adult down in a meadow. The angle was challenging to work with, but it's not like I was going to walk down to where the bear was so I tried to make it work.

And just like that, my last day had snuck up on me. I purposefully chose to leave the park later in the afternoon so that way I could give myself a solid morning in the park in case I got a really special sighting.

I found the grizzly again in the same meadow, but this time with nice golden sight light which gave a totally different atmosphere from the shots I had gotten the day before.

I decided to take a quick swing into Lamar Valley on my way out of the park in case there was something happening with wolves, but I was also hoping to check out a badger den that I had heard rumors about. By the time that I made it out there, I saw a line of photographers outside the den who told me that the badger went hunting about 3 hours ago and no one had seen her since. But not even 10 minutes after me being there she returned! And she was bringing food back for her babies; two ground squirrels! What a fantastic end to the trip!

This proved to be another very productive trip to Yellowstone. While I missed out on the wolves, I did have some very good grizzly bear sightings to make up for it. The real highlight actually turned out to be the smaller critters: the owls, foxes, and badgers that most people don't see. Yellowstone is definitely not an easy place to take good wildlife photos despite what some people may say, but if you put in the time and have some luck on your side, you can get some truly memorable shots!