Day 3 A Great Day with Grizzly 610 and her Subadults

Day 3 we drove to the usual spot and a crowd had already gathered. ^10 and her triplet subadults were coming down the mountain, The bears were already closer than we had ever been to them and now they were heading for the mass of people.

As they reached the stand of trees at the bottom 610 turned and her family followed her. Many people jumped into their cars and drove further south. I walked fast along the road being careful to stay outside the white line, (the ditch), and moved to the other side so I could watch the traffic as it approached. Renita stayed where she was with her camera, so we would cover two possible crossings. The bears kept moving parallel to the road and I called her to bring the car down as they were getting closer. I called her and by the time she arrived the bears had passed my spot and so we drove to a large meadow.

Parking, we waited and hoped it wouldn’t be long before they appeared. At one spot they huddled together. An elk carcass was there, or should I say a skeleton and one of the subadults was picking it up and chewing on a spinal column. Talk about a chew toy! This went on for a while and 610 started to move again.

Two of the subadults got in a fight. They would wrestle and then move and wrestle and move further. The sow started to walk directly toward us, and the third one joined her. She kept walking but the third heard the two fighting and turned towards its siblings and joined them. Meanwhile the sow got closer to us and as she neared the one-hundred-yard distance the Bear Management leader yelled that we should all get in our cars.

About then she turned around and saw that her triplets were not with her and so she turned back and rejoined them.By that time, we had arrived at the Pacific Creek Road.

Many of the cars and trucks had turned down it to head them off. Driving past them we couldn’t find a place to park as the ditch was very narrow, (you must park outside the white line). We moved further down to where a lot parking area was and waited for the bears. Some of the cars drove past us and a bear management team member stopped and told us the four grizzlies had crossed the road. Driving back, we saw they had crossed at a spot where we had parked and so we took pictures of their tracks.

Next we headed towards the dam but before we got there we saw vehicles parked and so we pulled over. There were two sets of grizzly tracks that had crossed the road the night before. The tracks were from 399 and her yearling called Spirit. You can see the difference in size.

They had appeared the evening before and escorted by the bear team crossed the road and river before continuing. They left the park boundaries and walked all the way to Wilson. We decided to call it a day and so returned to Jackson. Clear skies The next day we returned to the park. We did not see bears but just past the Lodge turnoff a wolf ran across the road. I could not get a picture, but later we were able to take pictures of the tracks. And yes we know the differenc ebetweena wolf an da coyote. It is only the second time we have seen a wolf in Grand Teton National Park and it made our day!

My hand is the same size as the track.