Yellowstone Trip: Bears

I don't know how many parts I'll divide up our vacation into but I have tons of photos to post.  I'm still not done editing yet as I'm having some difficulty with one of my cameras but I do have the majority of them done and un-professionally edited by me. 

Briefly, we started out our vacation very early on May 22 and drove straight through to Golden, CO.  It was a 16 hour drive.  We did it but the last few hours I was antsy and couldn't wait to get out of the car.  We drove through rain on and off as we headed through the last half of Kansas and eastern Colorado.  I was ever so happy to see the mountains in the distant.  We spent time in downtown Golden. It's just a cute little western town and I loved being there!  We had lunch at Woody's and did some shopping. We wanted to do the Coor's tour but decided we'd wait until the next time. We were exhausted and getting acclimated to the altitude and just couldn't keep going that day.

We headed to Casper for one night  and arrived in Yellowstone National Park on May 25. Memorial Day Weekend. Note to self: Don't ever go to the park during a major holiday.  Just lots more tourists than when we've been not-during-a-holiday is all I'm saying. 

We saw more bears this year than we could have dreamed of.  Bob saw 17 bears and I saw 16. I'm not counting one because he showed me where it was but I didn't actually witness it so can't count it.  It looked like a rock to me.

Above and below:  We encountered this black bear near a place called the Tower Falls area.  He was just strolling down the road minding his own business then he decided to cross the road in front of our vehicle and walked around on the hillside right next to us.  Bob and some other men got out of their vehicles and got too close and along came a park worker and they all got yelled at pretty good.  It was stupid and dangerous for them to be that close.  Enough said.

Above and below: This male grizzly was seen near the Lake and Fishing Bridge area.  We knew something was up as we drove into the area and there were cars pulled off the road and several park employees; so he must've been out there for a while.  We got out and took video and photos of him digging for critters, etc.  We were able to watch him for a good 20 minutes before he started for the trees. We sat in our car and watched him some more as the park rangers use their intercom system to warn everyone to remain in their vehicles.  Bob took lots of  great photos of this bear.

Above and below:  This is a grizzly sow and her yearling cubs. We saw them as we first entered the Tetons on May 25.  We watched for a while then went up the road to grab lunch at Signal Mountain and on our way back (below) the bears were still out and heading across the road into the woods.  In the photo below we were parked about 3 car lengths away and the first cub had already entered the woods. 

Above and below:  This mama black bear is foraging for food while her triplet cubs are napping up in a tree.  This family was also in the Tower area very early the morning of May 26, our second day in the park.  We pulled over and watched the mama for about 20 minutes.  We never did see the babies get out of the tree but could just see dark fur. We were told by some photographers there 3 young cubs.  This bear family was a popular attraction during the week we were there but after the rangers find out where the bears are they don't allow parking on the roadside so there is limited space to be able to watch them.

Above the two below:  This is Bob and another hiker (who we met with his wife and their dogs) walking on the trail to Daisy Geyser.  There had been rumors of a grizzly sow and bear cub in the area so we decided to hike this easy, flat trail on morning hoping to see something.  We took our walking sticks and bear pepper spray (which, from now on, we will both carry our own canister of spray).  I was hoping to see the bears but thought they would be across the river on the hillside or something.  We walked along clapping our hands, talking loudly, smacking our walking sticks on trees and being aware of our environment.  I kept turning around to see the couple and their dogs behind us as it made me feel safer to have other humans nearby.  They were probably 50 yards in back of us.  Bob and I would stop ever so often to listen for sounds of...nature, etc.  Lol!

We kept walking along the trail and we came up and over this little hill and this is what we saw!  It didn't take me long to  realize we needed to NOT be there.  I turned around and started to run and took 3 quick steps before I remembered that was the WRONG thing to do.  I quickly turned around and we both backed away and signaled to the other hikers to stop.  We made it back to them and told them what we saw.  I kept expecting to see the mama bear some barreling towards us down the trail but she stayed with her cub and continued to forage for food. 

I didn't go back up the trail to get a second glance.  We had been close enough!  But Bob walked back up the trail with the male hiker and then again with his wife so they could get a closer look.  When one of their 4 little dogs started to bark we all decided we needed to get back to our vehicles.  The little cub was newly born this spring.  It was so cute and little!  Bob said the mama bear did see them but didn't appear to feel threatened as long as they did not get any closer to the cub.  You could see other hikers way off in the distance (coming from the opposite side of the trail) but we were much closer.

It was such an exciting week getting to see all these bears.  I never imagined we'd be so close to that many of them. Many of the others we saw were pretty far away and some we could only see when offered a view from another person's spotting scope.