Mothers Day In Grand Teton National Park, 2025

I asked Renita what she wanted to do for Mother’s Day and of course she said, “Go to the Park, (meaning Grand Teton National Park)” We both thought there was a pretty good chance to see bears. We left our place in Star Valley at eight and arrived at Moran Junction about Ten. Turning North we stopped at the Oxbow and glassed for birds before continuing. Stopping at Willow Flats we spotted quite a few elk gathering there. It’s one of the calving spots in the park and the elk will give birth to calves.

The elk calves have no scent and will lie motionless as grizzles, wolves, and everything else will be hunting them, while the cow elk will graze in the open. The herd is good sized, which means lots of eyes watching for predators. As long as the newborn calves remain motionless their chances are pretty good, but if they spook and run, they are goners’ Further up the road we passed the place where we had seen Grizzly 1063 and her one-year-old cubs.

It wasn’t much further, and we saw the traffic jam and the four grizzlies. We had already had our cameras out and Renita dropped me off before finding a parking space. If you ever come looking for wildlife, you must be parked outside of the white line, or you will get a ticket. The bears were heading to the northeast, and I did get some good shots, Renita arrived, and we took lots of pictures. The bears next headed towards us and the Wildlife Management Team warned that the bears were again getting too close, less than 100 yards. Returning to our vehicles we were close enough that we had to get inside.

Meanwhile the bears stopped and so we were able to get quite a few pictures. The bear stayed far enough away that we only had to get inside for a little bit before we got the all clear from the Wildlife team, (I would like to thank them for the challenge of bears and too many people. They are an outstanding team!)

We ate lunch at the Willow Flats area and then decided to drive up Teton Park Road. There were a few cars parked, and people were taking pictures. Another bear jam, and this one was a small black bear climbing up the hill. Before I could get a picture, it disappeared into the trees. It didn’t matter as we had seen five bears in a day. That’s not our record but it was a great day, Our record is eight grizzlies). Leaving the park, we had to resupply and so we drove home. Clear skies. We found out that the next day two of the cubs were killed by a male grizzly. They kill the cubs to bring the sow into heat, No one had seen the third cub, and we feared for the worst. However today 1063 was spotted with her surviving cub, Thank goodness! By the way Renita took over 370 pictures!