I started out less excited about seeing wildlife than many of my fellow travelers, but I saw so many interesting animals and it ended up being very exciting.
All three parks are in grizzly bear territory, and people are very bear-conscious – like the same way we have been trained to be terrorist-aware in NYC. “Be Bear Aware.” “If you see something, say something.” You get the idea. Everyone is supposed to carry around bear spray in case you get charged by a bear (black or grizzly). Bear spray is a canister you spray toward a bear that makes them temporarily uncomfortable and mucusy so you can escape. It’s basically pepper spray for bears. It cost about $50 to buy and you can’t take it on a plane because it might explode (and it’s not really legal in New York State), so in absence of finding a buyer I left mine with the park rangers on my last morning, and they were very appreciative and said they’d probably give it to their staff. For me the bear spray felt like half tourist trap and half security blanket. You’re also supposed to clap and say “hey bear” when on a trail if you are not making noise so the bear does not get surprised by you. I did this a lot when I was alone. Mostly bears want to avoid humans.
I did get to see one bear. It was on the Hidden Lake trail in Glacier, which is an extremely popular and crowded trail that is partially on boardwalks. I’m pretty sure it was a young grizzly bear – as distinguished from black bears most visibly by the hump on their backs. It was pretty far away, though at one point it crossed the trail up ahead of us. Nearby – in fact about 10-15 feet off the trail – three bighorn sheep were grazing and stopped to stare at the bear, ready to scamper off if it presented any danger. They gave us some great photo opportunities! The trail also gave us a lot of mountain goats, which were adorable and came right up on and next to the trail. One was relaxing by the final viewpoint just a few feet off the trail, letting people take close-up photos of it. There were also tons of little chipmunks on this trail.
On the Grinnell Glacier hike, we saw one bighorn sheep up near the top, and from up high looking down we saw a large moose enjoying a stream.
I got a much closer view of a moose while we were driving to the park on our last day. Thomas was driving and we were following a minivan which was going pretty slow on the windy roads. All of a sudden, we see a huge moose jump out from the trees on the right side of the road! The minivan hit its breaks, but the moose decided it still wanted to cross the road. The left front of the van hit the moose on its back leg. We watched the moose fall to the ground, roll itself completely over, get up, and run off into the woods in the opposite direction. It was insane. We pulled around the stopped van to see if they were alright, and they nodded they were ok so we drove off. It was crazy. That road was also filled with lots of cows on the road, one of which we almost hit at dusk, but they at least seemed to know how to cross the street by looking for cars. Plus a big bird/crane of some sort.
In Yellowstone, my first stop as I entered the park was the Mammoth Springs Visitor Center, where right there on the well-manicured lawn were several elk just grazing. People were going up to take pictures while signs and rangers warned them not to. In the park I also saw a few bison on the side of the road, often causing serious traffic jams as people stopped to take pictures. There’s a section of the park where people can go to be sure to spot bison, so I was lucky I saw them so up close without taking the extra drive. Apparently they were “in the rut,” or in heat.
I also learned a lot about wildlife on my ranger-led hikes, like the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone which has been very important to the overall park ecosystem. Earlier this summer someone illegally shot one of the alpha wolves, which destroyed the pack. The hunter is still at large. I also learned how grizzly bears forage for moths all day, and what the tree trunks look like once bears have been there (which scared me for the rest of my hikes when I saw these). One large grizzly bear named Preacher (because of the white cross on its fur) learned to stalk and attack bison by jumping them from up high.
In Grand Teton I saw a ton of wildlife on my float trip, which our guide Reed had to point out each time with his eagle-eyes. We saw a moose (it didn’t have the big antlers though), a lot of beavers, and a bald eagle up in a tree. I saw some other random deer/elk along some drives in Teton as well.
The wildlife all helped make my time in the parks more exciting and, well, wild! There was an element of fear pervading my solo-hiking times, but it wasn’t debilitating terror or anything – just enough to give me a good adrenaline rush!
travels.of.tara 