Fire and brimstone, Yellowstone style. I followed wolf tracks down the dusty trail through the Heart Lake Geyser Basin, passing a number of hot pools along the way. This is a big game paradise, with animal sign everywhere I looked. Early in the year, the region around Heart Lake, and indeed much of southern Yellowstone is closed to human access for bear management purposes. The extra protection that the Grizzly gets inside Yellowstone is key to its survival and the excellent job that bear management has done in the past couple of decades is largely responsible for the (currently) thriving population of the great bear.

A number of sandhill cranes were feeding in the broad meadows between this point and the rangers cabin. As I approached, they'd lift off and fly in a big circle, heading back to the same spot as soon as I moved away.