After being treated to a spectacular lightning storm (and a not-so-welcome amateur fireworks presentation) Tuesday night, we enjoyed another amazing day in the park Wednesday. By midday, the Wolf Conservation Center group had already come across a black bear, coyotes feeding on a kill, and a remarkable stand-off involving bears, coyotes, wolves, and an ex-bison. The rest of the day brought even more animal encounters and a trip to Yellowstone Falls, a sight so remarkably powerful in its beauty that its painted image helped convince Congress to make Yellowstone the world’s first national park.

The downside of all this is that we don’t have time to sort through all our photos. Sorry about that! But we’ll post more as soon as we can. The above photo was from Tuesday’s elk chase (that we wrote about yesterday).