Hot bug-ridden days, crazy crowds, heedless RV's and pushy photographers – too often how the Summer chaos along Yellowstone’s Grand Loop Road may seem.  Whereas winter is known for silence and solitude, Summer is often maligned as anything but an escape to nature.  Nonetheless, Summer can be just as rewarding and enthralling – put on a long-sleeve bug shirt, take a brief hike, escape the human swarm and observe the best of Summer.

For me, spawning Cutthroat Trout and Northern River Otters are the highlight of early summer.  This summer an adult female, with two pups of the year and a protective older sister made up the family unit.  For Otters, playing, wrestling, napping, grooming and fishing are the priorities of the day.  With acute hearing and smell, they are equipped with sharp, lethal teeth and a body designed for swimming, in fact Otters are Olympic champions when it comes to fishing.  One afternoon, I watched as mom caught four trout in less than three minutes, giving each family member one trout, which they happily crunched and munched on.  That's what I call fast food.  

Having seen a Coyote catch a muskrat and take nearly 20 minutes to consume the rubbery meal, it was astonishing to once watch an Otter behead and devour a muskrat in about three bites and in less time than it takes to microwave popcorn.

As the days grow ever warmer, dust clouds explode from Hayden and Lamar Valleys as bull 

bison paw the ground and roll furiously in wallows, with grunts, snorts and growls emanating from all directions.  Sage, which is really scented ‘bison bling’, is viciously attacked leaving sheared-off branches adorning the horns of the most handsome bulls!  Crashing combat between surly, evenly matched bulls in a cloud of sunlit dust, and ringed by terrified calves and annoyed cows, makes for an enthralling afternoon of action.