How much can a grizzly bear?

Ranger Deirdre’s Wildlife Spotting Tips:

• That bear / moose / mountain goat you are convinced you can see in the distance is more likely to be a tree stump / shrub / rock.
• It doesn’t matter how long you stare at said tree stump / shrub / rock, it will not turn into a bear / moose / mountain goat. Ever.

South of Yellowstone are the beautiful jaggedy mountains of Grand Teton National Park.  French fur traders in the 19^th century named a section of the range “les Trois Tetons” meaning “the 3 breasts”. These guys had clearly been deprived of female company for far too long, and / or had access to far too much alcohol!

That being said, the park is another spectacular part of the country and as an added bonus doesn’t smell of sulphur. We stayed in a cute little log cabin on the shores of Jackson Lake at Colter Bay. On our first evening, we drove to a lookout area further into the park which was allegedly a good place to see moose. It would seem that the “moose appearance roster” has been significantly impacted on by federal budget cuts affecting the public service. The lookout turned out, however, to be the only place in the park that we could get Wi-Fi access, so it had its uses. While loitering thusly, we notice a large crowd of cars and people down in the valley (known as a Bear Jam), looking and pointing, so we decided to check it out. It turned out that there were 2 adolescent male grizzly bears hanging out – how exciting!!  We spoke to a guy who was all cammo-ed up (always useful when you’re standing on the side of a road next to your car) and had a huge camera lens (also cammo). He knew the whole soap opera; Mom Bear had just chucked the boys out of home and went back to her mum who’s just had triplets after one of her other cubs got killed.

Next morning we hired a kayak and took off into the serene waters of Jackson Lake, attempting to spot moose from the shoreline. No moose, probably on a training day. We found a small island, and seeing that it did not appear on the map we were given, it was obviously a new discovery. We stepped ashore at Hill point, and claimed sovereignty for Australia. We duly named the island “GoosePoo Island” because of its salient features. I foresee a great guano industry opportunity. We’ll let you know how the claim goes.

Stepping ashore at "Hill Pt" to claim GoosePoo Island for Australia.

Said notable island features

In the afternoon, we looked at the park maps and decided on one of the loop trails that included the some lakes, first going by the horse corral and then the sewage ponds for some olfactory stimulation. We soon discovered that the trail took us through exactly the type of thick thicketty thicket in which we had seen the bears, only a couple of kms away. There were no other walkers in sight. About 2/3 of the way around, the trail became very indistinct and overgrown, although there were occasional brown poles suggesting a trail may exist under the shrubbery. We had made some anti-bear preparations……...

"in the event of a bear emergency, I will say 'BEAR, BEAR, BEAR' then deploy the  Bear Spray"

"in the event of a Morris Dancing emergency, I will the deploy the Bells, and sing Hey Noni  Noni".

Rehearsing for anti Bear singing.

But didn’t bring the I-pod so we had to sing / clap / yell / ring that blasted bear bell for several hours. If I hear that bell one more time……..! There was no way in the world we would see any wildlife we were making such a racket, but the need to avoid bears overtook this. Bears are particularly dangerous now they have become aware of the Second Amendment (Part B) which gives the right to arm bears.  It was quite a relief to get to more travelled parts of the trail close to the lake! We did see 2 swans and a couple of heron who must have been deaf.

That evening we went back to the Bear Jam area and were rewarded with more sightings of the 2 grizzly boys – yep, in and around the thickets. It’s so much more relaxing to view them from a road with lots of people and cars for a quick escape.

On our 2^nd day in the park we went to Jenny Lake and caught the ferry shuttle across the lake for some hiking into the mountain range. We gazed up at the snow-capped, glaciated mountains towering above us as we crossed the lake, and overheard a woman ask the Captain “is that white stuff snow?” No, it’s icing sugar. Things always look better with a dusting of icing sugar.  We didn’t hear the Captain’s answer but hope it was more gracious than our own.  We walked up into Cascade Canyon which was really lovely walk, with a few people around to provide safety in numbers! It’s really interesting when we meet Americans whose comment about Australia is that it’s chock full of terrifying creatures that will kill you. They seem to forget the bears (black, brown and grizzly), mountain lions, wolves, coyotes and rattlesnakes in their own backyard.

A Big Tit at the Grand Breast.

You can wash your hands with a Bison!