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Published: July 26th 2013
Watch out bears!
There's a new sheriff in town!So far, our trip has been a mixture of endless immobile hours spent confined in the truck in contrast to the flurry of setting up a camp in time to get dinner made while there's still enough light to eat by. There's been the quiet of sparsely-populated campgrounds and the boisterous energy of convivial mid-sized cities.
On our way through Wyoming, we happened to pitch our tent at the Sinks Canyon State Park where very few other campers were to be found. (But those others all seemed to drive Toyotas, just like us. Brotherhood.) We particularly liked this campground because it made great use of the fact that we're travelling with a tent. The site was set up with a driveway for the truck, then a path to a spot where the picnic table sat, then another path into a grove of trees for the tent site which was as close to the river as you could get without tumbling in. Whereas some campsites are like plots, this one was like a suite. And if you were camping with an RV or a trailer you could never take full advantage of the absolutely charming layout. It was a
Sage Loop
The future's so bright I gotta wear sage. At Sinks Canyon. shame to spend just one night there but we were just a short day's drive to our destination - Grand Teton and Yellowstone.
I (Leslie) have wanted to see the Grand Teton Mountains for many years. I first heard of them when I was trekking around Mt. Kanchenjunga and a guy in our party said he and his wife had been there and really enjoyed it. Coming from just anyone, this might not have made a big impression but this guy was a 78-year old retired professor who had also just recently trekked in the Alps. And on our frozen, out-lying trip he expressed his dismay that weren't going to be doing any ice-climbing. But he brought crampons just in case. Optimist.
Anyway, he loved the Tetons and I filed that information away as a possible extremely cool destination. And now today we were about to see them "in the flesh!" They did not disappoint. Angular and sharp, crisp like they could easily cut right through the blue of the sky above them if they felt like it, these were very special mountains for sure. Most mountain ranges are formed when tectonic plates are
It's not a bug...
...it's a feature! jammed together, making plenty of foothills leading up to the main event. Not these. Of the two plates responsible, one pushed downward into the earth, forming the lake, and the other was shoved up at a remarkably sharp angle, forming the mountains. So when the tall trees break and you see the Tetons for the first time, it's striking how they just shoot out of the lake and go right on up to the sky.
We soon left the mountains behind and went on to Yellowstone which is absolutely jaw-dropping in many other ways. The gorges formed by the rivers are beyond description. If you've ever stood above the multi-colored canyon of the Yellowstone River at Artists Point, you know what I mean. Elsewhere, there are hellish looking pools of boiling sulfur-filled water coming from the very intestines of the earth. They bubble up in so many places you can't believe the entire park isn't about to belch magma over all the visitors and wildlife.
And speaking of wildlife. Wow. To set the stage for you, we knew we were coming here at the very height of the season. Full accommodations. Busy little roads.
The evening paper
Michael relaxes by mapping out our future. Unmanageable hoards of tourists. But the number of people who, on a busy one-lane road, just plain stopped driving so they could get out of the car and take a picture of an elk so far away it's just a brown blob... wow! Of course this caused "traffic jams" for miles in each direction. But is it really a jam when no one's commuting and everyone abandons their cars to see what's been holding up traffic?
Hold the phone, though, even more astonishing was the number of tourists who - upon finding an animal wandering especially close to the road - would get out and try to go right up to it for what might have been the very last picture of their lives. It's actually a wonder that ordinary people aren't killed or maimed every day in Yellowstone, with only their own ignorance or stupidity to blame. Or maybe they are but the rangers squash the news story to protect the reputation of the park. Yes, that's got to be it!
We'd seen bison and elk and moose and all types of exotic birds. But we were well trained to be wary of
This is where it sinks.
The river runs into a cave and takes 2 hours to travel 1/4 mile through the rock. Why? No one knows. bears. Especially since our campsite was on the very edge of the grounds, next to the woods where the bears have been known to emerge from. No food, clothes or any delicious toiletries escaped a night spent in the metal bear box fixed firmly on our site. If a couple of tent campers were gonna get mauled by bears in the middle of the night, it wasn't gonna be us.
One morning we got up and decided to drive to the Jackson Lake Lodge for breakfast before hitting the trails. Meandering down the tree-lined road before most other campers were up and at 'em, we looked suddenly to our left. A moving blob had grabbed our attention so - just like all our fellow tourists whom I previously berated for doing this very thing - I pressed hard on the brakes to get a closer look. The blob moved onto the road which was where we identified it as a bear!! A big ol' black bear! It came right behind our truck as it made its way to the other side of the road and then went peacefully on with its morning. The only sound was the
one other car nearby that actually managed a u-turn on the narrow road to get into better gawking position. After our fleeting encounter, I realized we could easily be hit from behind and we'd better get moving. So we did, getting up to a safe speed just as a white Toyota Tundra came around the corner, probably on their way to fishing or breakfast or rock climbing, never to know how close they were to a magnificent black bear.
And that's why our encounter was especially cool. No traffic jam, no being the 150th tourist in line hanging out the window to get a photo of the bear. But even better, no quiet night's sleep interrupted by the rattling of the bear box or the tent being shredded by giant bear claws. Nope, just us and another car of tourists, safe behind steel, noticing our bear friend as he paid us no mind on his way to eat berries, steal picnic baskets or shit in the woods.
It was another physically exhausting day filled with hiking, sightseeing and long drives around Yellowstone. The sightseeing was supplemented by a strong thunderstorm which - at this
That sinking feeling
Michael poses by the cave where the river sinks. point - was pretty predictable. For the last couple of days almost exactly at 4:30pm thick black clouds moved in, lightning and thunder shook the earth and then HAIL! Yes, HAIL! Small hail, but still. Geez. Not the best weather for tent camping or hiking or almost anything except sitting in the lodge drinking wine. So we adjusted, hey!
We turned in just before the campground quiet time of 10pm and fell right to sleep. A couple of hours later, I woke up to such loud voices that I immediately assumed a bear had commenced to ripping into a tourist. Why else could there be so much shouting? As I sat up I realized there was no panic, there was just shouting. Drunk campers returning to their sites? No. It was just a group - a very large relatively sober group - that had arrived late. Seems they had rented a number of the Air Force trailers around us and they felt the need to get the dish on each others' digs. "WELL, LOOK AT THE CABINETS IN THIS ONE!!" "HEY, HOW MANY BEDS DO YOU HAVE OVER THERE??" "GEORGE! GEORGE!!! HEY, GEOOOOORGE! DO YOU GUYS HAVE
A girl and her mountain
Here I am at the Grand Tetons. Geez, I love mountains! ANY MAYO OR MUSTARD? MAYO OR MUSTARD!!! DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY??? MAYOOOOOO OR MUSTAAAAAAAARD!!!!"
Okay, that was it. I got up, grabbed a flashlight and went to the bathroom. On the way back I walked by the campsites of some of our newest neighbors. They saw my light and naturally shouted,"WHO'S THAT!!!??? I DON'T RECOGNIZE THAT LIGHT! WHO IS IT???" "It's me," I said. "I couldn't sleep, there's been some terrible noise." "THERE HAS???!!!" "Yes, did you hear it? It's a bunch of people talking really loud. Did you hear it? It's awful and I can't sleep." "OH," said an astute loudmouth, "I think that was us." I wished them a good night and headed back to the tent to try to grab any sleep I could. They simmered down after that. But the next day we asked ourselves why we should stay one more night. Why should we subject ourselves to the daily hail and the late night condiment emergencies? So with an amazing couple of days under our belts, we cut our losses and moved on to the final leg of our trip, leaving plenty of reasons to for a return trip to Wyo.
*****More pictures follow*****
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