Yellowstone-Wolfs

Is late December (20th-31st)a good time to photograph "wolfs" in Yellowstone Park, or are January and February much better?
Best way to catch a snow coach if not on a "tour" into Madison, etc.

Lamar valley you can drive to.  Take a very long lens.  I spent a long weekend with the Yellowstone Institute Wolf Class.  A lot of luck involved and we didn't have any close wolves with a group that knows what they are doing.

Access to the park interior is tightly controlled in winter and is not photographer friendly.  As far as I know, you can't ride a snow coach unless you are on a tour of some sort or hire one for a "custom" tour.  I've done both.  Entry from Flag Ranch, West Yellowstone or Mammoth.  Most go in from West Yellowstone however if staying at Old Faithful Xantera in recent years was going from Mammoth.  I'd go in January-February.  Don't know about this year but I've seen years where there was not enough snow in December to open the over the snow roads.  To photograph the park interior you really have to go on a photo tour just to get access.  Other tourist tours are more for snapshots and will not wait for you to work a situation.  To my mind your only other choices are to work on foot out of old faithful (enter from mammoth on snow coach) staying at the snow lodge or frontier cabins there (while there are wolves in area I doubt you will get a good wolf photo there) or go to Lamar valley and photograph from a car staying in Cooke city or Mammoth.

It's been a couple years since I was last at Yellowstone, but as I remember the Lamar Valley was not the hotbed of Wolf activity it once was. Last I remember the better place was between Yellowstone Lake and Canyon Village, but that road is closed in the winter.

And the plural form of Wolf is Wolves...


Brian

Lamar Valley is a great photo location Year Round. I lead tour in Yellowstone. I would recommend you spent a few days in Lamar Valley. Every day is a different adventure. I prefer to go in January because of the favorable snowfall levels.

Lamar valley is one of my favorite places in Yellowstone and I try to get there every three years or so. I haven't seen wolves in Lamar Valley since 2004 but the MPS still lists it as the best place for viewing them. So, Lamar may still be a good place though my experience doesn't back that up. Also note that much of the action in Lamar is FAR away, like 1/4 mile or more, so big lenses are necessary most of the time. I've never been in winter, however, so things may well be better for wolves that time of year and thankfully, the road through Lamar is open most of the year though it can be closed until cleared after a heavy snow.


Brian

There is a relatively good chance that you will see a few in Lamar Valley - but they are almost always only specks in the viewfinder, far, far away. Some people are happy with that. Others, not so much...

I was in Yellowstone a few years ago and took a walk from the non-descript Indian Creek Campground and realized that I had a shadow in the form of a large male wolf about 3 lodgpoles deep that was keeping an eye on me. We walked together for quite a while, accepting each others presence. The moral of the story is that they can be any where and to spot them, you have to keep your eyes open.

flip2350 wrote:Is late December (20th-31st)a good time to photograph "wolfs" in Yellowstone Park, or are January and February much better?
Best way to catch a snow coach if not on a "tour" into Madison, etc.

  We went in Jan. 2015.  As others said, it is best to have a really long lens (I rented a Nikon 800mm
which I used with the included 1.2TC on a DX camera) since many times the wolf packs are off in the distance.  However many times they can be much closer, near the road or near Mammoth Lodge (one person we met at the Lodge had incredible photos from a sighting right near the Lodge).  We rented a private snow coach from Grand Canyon Snowcoach Safari which picked us up at the lodge and took us for a nine hour tour of the area closed to cars.  The driver/guide they provided was great and highly recommend them.  There were 4 of us and dividing up the price, it was well worth it!  (we saw red fox and coyote hunting but missed the bobcat and wolves though others saw them).  We were lucky in that we got to watch a wolf in the Lamar Valley that had been "banned" from her pack sneak down to get a few bites from a carcass near the road (there were many other people there as well).  I much more enjoyed the time I was completely alone watching and listening to the howls of a pack that was way off in the distance where I could get some documenting photos with the 1500mm 35mm equivalent of my  gear.  The full photos are on my website: https://www.flickr.com/photos/60519499@ ... 690870744/  

A little bit more information on the Yellowstone wolf photography. FYI I live here in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and have been leading photo tours in Yellowstone National Park for 27 years. From May through September I'm in the park nearly every day leading 12 hour van tours from Cody Wyoming. I do 2 or 3 winter tours every year using chartered a chartered snow coach form West Yellowstone and spend time in the northern range of the park which includes the Lamar Valley. The wolf population has stabilized since 2008 at around 100 wolves within the boundaries of the park. In reality you have 1 wolf for every 33 square miles. Getting quality wolf photos in the park in not easy. In the early years from around 2000 to 2005 the Lamar Valley was excellent for view and photographing the wolves. You had 2-3 big wolf packs living in the valley with 20-30 wolves in each pack. The prey base in the Lamar during winter is only a fraction of what it once was so the area can't support those numbers any more. Many wolves have moved out of the park to areas with greater numbers prey animal. I spent part of yesterday watching a wolf kill outside the park hoping the get a chance to photograph them.

But you can by spending time and being persistent come away with some good wolf photos. When I'm in the northern range in the winter I can usually see wolves nearly every day but that doesn't always equate to quality photo opps. These days on one of my week long tours we usually get 2-3 chances for some wolf photos. Long lenses are a must. Last winter we did pretty good in the interior of the park. We had 2 packs in the Hayden Valley in view at the same time. Distance was long for photos but experiencing several hours of howling back and forth between the rival packs was an experience very few people witness.

Going along on scheduled interior tours via snow coach or snowmobile will get you into the park but can be frustrating for serious photographers. December might be tough in the interior this year. Low snow pack.. January can be real good. February is the start of the breeding season for wolves so it can be quite good. Lots of howling and younger adult wolves running around trying to find mates and perhaps start a new pack. That can lead to some nice chance encounters with them.

Short of chartering a snow coach time spending lots of time in the northern range would be your best option.

I was in the Northern Range (Lamar Valley) last week for 4 days.  I camp in my camper van in Cooke or Mammoth.  Wapiti pack (21 wolves) were present and I got some nice enviro photos of them heading back to a bison kill that the rangers had to move from the road with my D500 and a 500/4. Looks like they headed back to Hayden Valley now.

The Mollies (14 wolves) were down from Pelican valley and got to watch the Junction Butte pack (8 wolves) ralley and howl at the Mollies for 15 minutes. Fortunatley the Mollies took off up Slough Cr and there was no confrontation over the Junction Butte's territory. Photos are a bonus, but I just love it up there.  

A quality spotting scope is mandatory. Doug is up in Lamar pretty much every day, but back in Gardner in the afternoon. He will rent you a Swarovski ATX 95mm spotting scope for a reasonable fee (check his facbook page - Optics Yellowstone). Subscribing to Yellowstone Reports also gets you the latest on the pack dynamics.  
Having said all this, if your sole purpose is getting a frame filling photo, your odds are very low, but if just seeing the dudes in there big winter coats interact with the pack and other packs, howl, etc then the northern range is awesome!