We love Yellowstone National Park. It's amazing place that should be on every outdoorsman and woman's bucket list at some point or another. In addition to the chance to see elk, bears, wolves, eagles and other wildlife, the park's thermal features can make you feel like you just set foot on another world.
Sometimes, if you're lucky, you may be fortunate enough to see wildlife hanging around the hot springs and geysers. That's what happened in this video.
These tourists are simply wandering around some of the many boardwalks meant to keep tourists safely off the unstable grounds around the many thermal features when a group of elk comes running in. To the surprise of the many tourists standing around, they are being chased by a bear who splashes right through a few thermal features while trying to catch an elk dinner. It's a wild sight and not your average Yellowstone tourist video.
A few of those elk got cornered in by some of the boardwalks and pools and didn't seem to know quite where to go. Neither did the tourists, who could do nothing except stand behind the barriers and hope the bear didn't try to jump them. From the start of the video, it looks like the bruin was trying to target the elk calf that was in the group. He even ran straight across one of the hot springs pools in his quest to try and catch it! Many of those pools are scalding hot due to volcanic activity, but the bear didn't even seem to notice.
Fortunately for the humans and probably the elk too, the bear seemed to hesitate a bit when he got up close to the boardwalk. Probably because he was frightened of the humans milling about.
Yellowstone has strict rules about remaining 100 yards away from large predators and 25 yards from herbivores like bison and elk. However, in this case, there was simply no time to get away before both animals were right on top of them. Thankfully, the animals avoided the humans and the tourists have a crazy story to share when they get back home.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
