Cuddly Grizzly Bears and the Grand Tetons

 

Day 8 of my Yellowstone trip. May 5th 2010

The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Centre is next on our to ‘do list’, so off we drive to the west entrance of Yellowstone Park. This centre provides an opportunity to observe, learn and appreciate grizzly bears and gray wolves.

The first guy we come upon is this huge brown bear. These adult bears generally weigh between 100 and 600 kg (220 and 1,300 lb).

Here’s looking at you. 😉

 

Next up were these playful twins. They were having such fun together, but of course they were well matched with one another.

 

Unfortunately, the only Yogi Bear we can find, is this stuffed one. I know it might come as a shock to some of you, but I think the real Yogi Bear died a long time ago.;(

 

The grey wolves are mostly hiding away, but we see this one, which isn’t at all interested in entertaining the visitors, and appears to be sleeping.

There are quite a few stuffed animals there, and this Polar Bear is the biggest of the lot.

Here is a display of Black Bears, which are the smallest and most common bears in North America.

 

After seeing all there is to see, and eating lunch at the cafe, we’re bouncing along the bumpy road on our way to Jackson Hole, where we’re to spend the night before flying back to New York. There’s more snow lying around now and we’re back into Wyoming and on the Teton Pass. I want a couple of pics, but the snow is so deep in the lay-byes, that we can’t stop until we reach the top of the Pass. We finally find a place to pull in and the snow drift at the side is really tall, three to four metres high!

 

A young woman skier suddenly  appears over the top of the drift with her two dogs, and they all pile into a truck. Hubby takes pics down each side of the Pass and says he can see the rooftop of a hut, peeking out of the snow on the other side of the drift. As he gets back into the car, snow blows off the top, straight at him.

The high peaks of the snow covered Teton Range, which is estimated to be between 3 and 10 million years old, rise almost 7,000 feet from the valley floor.

We’re on icy roads again, but we’re old hands at this game now, and I’m relaxed. The scenery in this region, is magnificent.

Coming out of the Pass, it’s only ten more minutes to Jackson Hole and our last night in Wyoming.

It’s quite a ‘one horse’ town, with only about 10,000 inhabitants, but it has an ‘olde-worlde’ charm, all of its own.

The town square has an antler arch on each of its four corners. These were built in 1950, and have recently had to be replaced. One arch requires 10,000 lbs of antlers which come mostly from the National Elk Refuge, just north of Jackson Hole. No Elk are harmed for their antlers, as they naturally shed them each winter

 

We’re back tonight at The Rustic Inn, warm and cosy, and looking forward to a good night’s sleep and another of their absolutely delicious breakfasts with crispy bacon to die for, before flying back to our son’s house in New York. It’s been a wonderful and exciting few days and we’ve made so many happy and fantastic memories during our adventure.”

I would thoroughly recommend this trip to any of you who have the opportunity to go there.

Have a great day everyone.