Today we left Jackson and headed North to Yellowstone National Park. On the way we travel through some magnificent scenery, with the backdrop of Teton range. We pull off to take some pictures and are lucky enough to see some otters swimming in the river and an osprey gracefully riding the thermals above our heads before swooping into water to collect its prey.
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As we move north and rise in altitude the snow thickens around us, some places on the side of the road where it has been banked by snow ploughs it is five or six feet deep. A true winter wonderland, even at the end of May! Deep into Yellowstone we come across the vast expanse of Yellowstone Lake which is still covered by a layer of ice – which is rather surreal as we stand looking across it to the far off mountains in 70 degree temperatures and wearing T-shirts. Our campsite is at Fishing Bridge only a short distance from the lake. As we enter the site we are greeted by signs warning that we are in a area .jpg)
frequented by bears and that tents and soft sided trailers are not permitted. We quickly set-up camp and leave to find bears, the best chance we are told is off to east. On our journey we see a coyote strolling calmly along the roadside, we pull over to take a photograph. We have seen coyotes before but this is the closest we have got yet. As we watch this wonderful creature he seems in no hurry to get off, nonchalantly looking at us for a few brief moments before calmly moving onwards. If we could we would have picked him up and taken him home ... but I am sure the Park Rangers would have something to say about this.Further down the road we pull into a pull-off in an open area where there are several other people all waiting for a sighting of some bears. Karen
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and Emily soon engage some of these amateur naturalists as we all patiently wait. People come and go, and one of the families befriended by Karen passes by and tells us just around the headland there is a mother and two cubs – so off we go. When we get there we find a large collection of people with binoculars, telescopes and cameras with huge lenses peering into the woods, which evidently means were are in the right place. One very kind lady with her telescope trained on the bears allows us to look through at the bears hiding away behind some trees – it is our first sighting of grizzly bears and we are very excited. We hang around as the watching crowd swells and the sun goes down beyond the horizon –even though the bears are not co-operating too much. A real comradery builds amongst us observers, our bond only broken by several bison who come amongst us – these can be unpredictable creatures so we keep them at a respectable distance, although at one point Mark has to make a dash to the car as one frisky beast makes towards him. Sadly we have to part with our new made friends and go back to our motorhome.
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