Somewhere... over Mount Washburn... skies are blue.

I awoke to thunder. It was approaching quickly, so we hurried into the car and hit the road just as the first fat drops of rain began to pelt the roof. This was a nasty storm, our first real lousy weather of the trip... I just hoped it wouldn't last too long. We tried to outrun the storm, which was following us up the road toward Dunraven Pass. Once we hit the northern slopes of Washburn, the storm had veered in another direction and we were dry for the moment. Waking up this early on a stormy morning had one benefit, which we witnessed out the window. A double rainbow had appeared over the slopes of Washburn.

We had one real goal for this morning. It was our last chance to find otters. Late morning hadn't worked. Afternoon hadn't worked. How 'bout the wee hours of the morning... We reached the parking lot below Trout Lake, gathered our gear and started up the trail. The strange warning photo of a young otter with a fishing line hooked to its mouth, posted at the trailhead previously, had disappeared. Some anti-otter fisherman perhaps? Or someone looking for souvenirs, like the people who had slowly removed some old bones from the same trail over the last three days.

Near the top, the storm caught up with us. As I was scrambling to attach rain gear to all my cameras and lenses, a member of our party spotted an otter, right there on our end of the lake. Gee, that was easy! The otter dipped in and out of the water a few times before pulling a small fish onto the grassy bank. It was dark, very wet and my glasses (the first morning I had opted to not put my contacts in) were fogging up... not the best picture-taking conditions!

In all, three otters appeared. It looked like there were two sub-adults (probably last year's babies) and an adult (mom?). We slowly followed the family as they took off across the lake toward the inlet. We caught up with them as they arrived. The younger otters pulled themselves out onto the log, while mom chased down a trout and brought it out of the water for breakfast.

While she was munching away, the youngsters didn't bother fishing. One spent the entire time scratching itself, while the other preened itself for a while before trying to get a free handout from mom. She wouldn't let it near her food.

The third time was the charm when it came to our otter search.

Just as the sun came out and the light was about to be perfect, the otters slipped back into the water and took off. They swam along the shore a ways before hauling themselves out. They slipped into the grass briefly, specifically for a bathroom break, before returning to the water. No floaters allowed in the pool!

As we continued to follow the otters around the lake shore, they spooked a family of geese (I just missed the shot of the otter rising out of the water with angry parent geese honking back at it) and a small group of American avocets, which fluttered in circles around the lake.

The otters reached their den site, but two of them soon slipped back across the lake, this time spooking our favorite goldeneye mother and her brood. The babies scattered in all directions while mom honked and staggered all over the place, hoping any otters that had a hankering for flesh might deem her an easier target than her offspring. The otters, of course, ignored her. The one remaining otter apparently got distracted, because by the time he reappeared, his mom and sibling had disappeared across the lake. He swam back and forth, squeaking for his long-departed family.

Having gone all the way across the lake and back without any success, the lonely otter made its way back to our corner of the lake just as we were leaving. It slipped under the log footbridge and down the creek through the deadfall, disappearing down the hill from Trout Lake. We hoped it wasn't going too far and would eventually reunite with the rest of the family.

Otters don't like leaving floaters in the pool.

Finally, we saw our otters... the trip finally felt complete in some ways. We headed south, planning to stop at a few of the geyser basins we hadn't visited earlier in the week. At one, a strange sight greeted us... a bunch of people wading around in the river right near the parking lot. I wondered if some sort of mass baptism was taking place, but apparently everyone simply felt like wading into the river at the same time... one person was even snorkling!

A ranger had booted them by the time we returned. We continued on toward the Tetons. One last visit to GTNP for afternoon moose sightings and nice meal to close the trip at the Jackson Lake Lodge. The afternoon down there was a bit disappointing... we spotted a few distant moose from the deck of the lodge, but all of our other stops yielded no close moose.

In one last-ditch pre-dinner moose drive, we ran into a small jam just south of the lodge. Apparently, while we were out on the lodge deck, the moose cow and calf that frequented the area had come out right near the road in plain sight. By the time we got there, they had settled into the brush for the evening, mom's ears just visible. We had missed them by only a few minutes, and the brush was so thick that we couldn't move anywhere for a better angle. So we struck out on moose calves.... oh well, at least dinner was nice.

Finally, the end!