October 10, 2025 – Yellowstone National Park
Our final day on our Hunt’s Photo Adventure with Don Toothaker
There’s a truth about Yellowstone that every photographer eventually learns — the longer you stay, the more she gives. Just when you think you’ve seen it all — the mist rolling off the river, the elk bugling through the valley, the morning sun painting everything in gold — she leans in and whispers, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Our last day began quietly enough. A soft sunrise, a few obliging elk, and the gentle rhythm of a week well spent. It wasn’t the Technicolor masterpiece of the morning before, but it carried that hush of something about to happen. We just didn’t know what yet.
Wildlife photography, I’ve decided, is a lot like offshore tuna fishing. Long periods of calm, followed by fifteen minutes of absolute bedlam. One minute you’re discussing NFL quarterbacks, the next, chaos erupts — lines screaming, adrenaline surging, plans forgotten. As Mike Tyson famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they’re punched in the face.”
By now, our team of adventurers had the rhythm down to a science. We were in and out of the van like a NASCAR pit crew, scanning every ridge, meadow, and tree line for movement. And I’ll admit — we’d even come to appreciate Adam’s jokes. That’s progress.
We’d photographed it all: elk, bison, grizzlies, bighorn and pronghorn sheep, coyotes, trumpeter swans, red fox, the ethereal Great Gray Owl, magpies, ravens, Canada jays, and eagles. Oh, I almost forgot, a chipmunk too. Well, OK, maybe I was the only one who photographed a chipmunk. It was already a trip for the record books.
Then Adam got word.
A quiet call from his network — his unseen web of trackers, photographers, and local eyes that seem to stretch across Yellowstone like the park’s nervous system. The Wapiti Lake Pack had made a kill.
And just like that, the calm was over.
If you’ve ever heard the reels scream on a tuna boat, you already know the feeling that surged through our van. Cameras armed. Seatbelts optional. Game on.
When we arrived, there were surprisingly few people around — a sign that Adam’s tip had come early, and we were among the first. He pointed to an area high on the hill. Almost at the top — then we saw them — dark shapes moving against the pale grass.
The Wapiti Lake Pack.
We could see them feeding, lifting their heads occasionally to check for company. Translation: grizzlies. The only creatures in Yellowstone brazen enough to crash a wolf’s dinner party.
They were on and off the kill in a constant rotation. Sometimes you’d see one, sometimes two. Their coloration suggested there were definitely more than three, but I couldn’t be certain. One of them was almost black — so dark it looked like his eyes were illuminated.
I started thinking composition before I even raised the camera — if I could just get two wolves in frame, that would be a great shot. My 800mm was close, but not close enough. The scene was cluttered with trees – fallen and upright, brush, saplings, tree stumps, and tall grass. Translation – a composition nightmare. I could add the 1.4X extender, but that meant taking the lens off… while wolves were in frame. The internal battle began.
I went for it. Quick, clean, silent.
No gasps, no frantic clicking from my companions — maybe I’d timed it right. And then, movement.
Not one.
Not two.
Three wolves.
And one of them is carrying take-out in its jaws. You should have heard the gang. “He got meat in his mouth!”
The Wapiti Lake Pack had met the Hunt’s Pack — Don, Adam, Paola, Nicky, Tom, Philippe, Steve, Alan, Stephanie, Trish, and me — spellbound at the foot of the hill.
And this was only the morning.
The day — and Yellowstone — still had plenty more stories to tell.
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