A Last Trip to the Tetons for 2020, Hiking the Bradley Trail

The smoke here has been really bad but finally the wind shifted and cleared things out. It was time to head to the Tetons for a hike with our neighbors and friends, Fred and Becky, and hopefully a close encounter with a bear.

The aspens had finally turned and so it was a colorful drive to Grand Teton National Park. We took the Moose Wilson road as it has the best potential for bear spotting due to all the hackthorne berry trees.

We entered the park and drove past the potholed gravel stretch of road before things finally smoothed out. We did not get far before we spotted stopped cars and a park bear volunteer waving us past. Luckily, we were able to get parking spots, (Fred and Becky drove their own car due to covid), and we did not have to walk far to get back to the bear.

It was close to the road and there were actually two bears, although you could not see either one. All you could see were bushes shaking and the occasional sound of branches breaking as the bears pulled the trees down to eat the berries, (the hackthorne has long thorns but the bears did not seem to mind).

One of the bears came into view and we watched as he/she fed and fed and fed. The bear specialist said that the bear had gotten in trouble begging for food from tourist and reminded us that a fed bear is a dead bear. The bear had been trapped, tagged in the ears, and radio collared and if he started begging for food would be euthanized.

He did not seem bothered by us as he continued to feed. The park volunteer said the bear would feed for a bit and then cross the road to a pond where he would drink before returning to the berry feast.

 

We had a good hike ahead of us and so we left heading to the Taggert Bradley Trailhead. Our plan was to hike to Bradley, a new hike for us, and maybe return to Taggert. It would have been a hike of about six miles.

The trail is steeper than the one we hiked in Glacier National Park and started at over six thousand feet in elevation. It was not too bad we started to climb but the trail got steeper and Renita dn I stopped to measure our heart rates.

We let our heart rates tell us when to stop and so Fred and Becky got ahead of us. They stopped for us to catch up and so the hike became a lot longer than we had planned. It took us over two hours until we finally sighted Bradley lake through the trees.

After lunch we took the obligatory pictures before we head back down the trail. Deciding to head directly back we skipped Taggert Lake and arrived back at the cars in a little over an hour. Our friends had to leave, their dog was waiting at home, but we decided to drive to Pilgrim Creek in search of more bears.

We never did spot any more bears, but we did get to enjoy the sight of colorful trees reflecting on the surface of Jackson Lake. It had been a good hike and my ankles had survived without any problems, (going downhill is tricky for me as I sometimes roll my ankle. I did wear my good high top hiking boots and used a hiking staff which also helped.