Great Herds Gather In Remote Valley Yellowstone Wolves Will Be Released Where Game Abounds

The Lamar is a valley of extremes.

Often the hottest spot in Yellowstone National Park during the fleeting days of summer, the Lamar Valley is also where some of the coldest temperatures are recorded during the long months of winter.

But it’s during winter that the valley fills with game. Elk and buffalo, fat from grazing the high ridges and plateaus above the valley, begin showing up along the river bottom in late September. By early December, the animals have gathered there in great herds.

Some are simply passing through and will continue their migration down the Lamar to the Yellowstone River and lower country outside the park. But for many, the Lamar Valley will be home until spring.

Because of this available food source, the reintroduction of wolves in the park is centered around the Lamar Valley. Wolves will be released in a few weeks from a pen on Rose Creek in the middle of the valley and from other pens at each end of the Lamar.

A classic valley in geological terms, the Lamar is bordered by Amethyst Peak and Specimen Ridge rising sharply to the south and sparsely timbered sagebrush hillsides running up to Bison Peak, Frederick Peak and Druid Peak on the north.

The Lamar River begins its run high in the Absaroka Mountains on the eastern edge of the park, increasing in volume with each tributary it passes.

Miller Creek, Cold Creek, Calfee Creek and Clover Creek all empty their flows into the river, but the Lamar stays hidden in steep country and timber blackened by the great fires of ‘88 until it passes the mouth of Cache Creek and makes a timid entrance into the valley, following the line of timber at the base of Specimen Ridge for a few miles before emerging into the open.

Even then, tall cottonwoods shield the Lamar from view and it’s not until its confluence with Soda Butte Creek that the river takes center stage.

Few trees line banks of the Lamar as it winds 15 miles or so through the valley. Few cottonwoods are left, too old to produce any younger trees, the result of years of over-grazing by thousands of large ungulates.

The river exits the valley in much more dramatic fashion, dropping at the west end into a narrow canyon filled with huge boulders which make the water froth and roar in springtime.

But in winter, even the canyon of the Lamar is quiet.

And each winter, from the canyon to the eastern end of the valley, elk and buffalo graze the thick grass lying beneath the snow.

By late January, the elk are no longer fat and sleek. Coyotes feed on the dead and dying. The youngest and weakest are the first to succumb and their bones are picked clean by eagles, magpies and ravens. Although winter’s toll on the herds won’t be realized in its fullest until spring, elk die all winter in Yellowstone.

By summer, only a few buffalo will remain, the great herds will have abandoned the valley for greener pastures on the high plateaus. Only the bones of those animals that didn’t survive will be left to bleach white in the lush grass along the river.