#399 | Adventures With Jim And Maura

We spotted one of the most famous bears in Wyoming yesterday morning. I’ve been tracking her for weeks through a Facebook group called Yellowstone Photographers and she definitely didn’t disappoint. #399 is a 25 year old mama grizzly who recently gave birth to four cubs (quite the anomaly). Our guide on the eco tour said that she has birthed about 20 cubs in her 25 years. A surprising fact is that a female bear will mate with multiple male bears while she’s in heat and so her offspring could potentially be half siblings. Crazy, right? Nature is just so cool. You have to stay at least a few hundred yards away from the bears during a bear jam, so the photos are hard to get. Jim was able to get a really good photo as we drove by.

This picture only has #399 and two of her cubs, but four were definitely there. One of the cubs decided to take it upon themselves to show off to the audience and play with the ranger’s cones. See below pic.

After the grizzly encounter in the Grand Tetons, we decided to head into Yellowstone National Park. The south entrance just opened last week – there is still quite a bit of snow in the park, but it depends on where you are. Our first stop was Old Faithful where we toured the geysers. The boiling point of the geysers is about 200 degrees fahrenheit and they were just so beautiful.

We were walking along the path and we got a whiff of something real bad. It smelled like a really stinky fart (or maybe rotten eggs), but it was just the sulphur emanating from the ground. Old Faithful went off about 12:30PM – it goes off every 90 minutes and lasts a few minutes while it’s erupting. It’s super touristy there, so we couldn’t wait to get back on the road and explore more wildlife.

We ran into some really cool bison along the way, including a mama bison nursing her calf (they’re called red dogs in the park).

Nephew Carter took the photo of the two bison and the calf laying on the ground.

Next, it was on to Lower and Upper Yellowstone Falls. We took a 20 minute hike to the Lower Falls and quick ride to the Upper Falls. The below picture is of the Upper Falls.

It was starting to get late, so we decided to head back home. Yellowstone is just over 2 million acres and is figured in a figure eight. We didn’t have enough time to hit the upper section of the figure eight, so we only hit the lower section.

On our way back, we drove by Yellowstone Lake, which was still pretty frozen over.

As we pulled over to take the above pic, Carter spotted a red tailed hawk (we think that’s what it was!) in the lodgepole pine tree. Good eye!

Then, we were back on our way on the road to grab some dinner in downtown Jackson. Some homemade pizza and pitcher of local beer really hit the spot.

This morning, Carter and I woke up really early to grab some photos of the sunrise. The pictures were just ok, so we decided to head into the Grand Tetons to try to track some photos of wildlife. We went onto Moose Wilson Road, which is a super hotspot for photos. A few miles in and we came across a female moose in the brush. She didn’t mind us watching her, so we stayed awhile and just watched. We were pretty excited that we saw her before anyone else did – and, within about 10 minutes, multiple cars stopped to watch her too.