The Wild Life

The Tetons are drop-dead gorgeous. Seduced for many years by California’s spectacular coast, I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful this part of the world is -- and that mountains were my first love. We’re in the Gros Ventre campground where, for the princely sum of $9 a night we look out on a sage-dotted meadow where moose and bison and antelope roam, backed by the jagged peaks of the snow-dusted mountains. The leaves are just beginning to turn gold.
This is the best park for wildlife viewing in the U.S. The first night after setting up camp we joined a dozen other campers in a meadow, where a moose pair taunted photographers with tripods and expensive telephoto lenses, the bull showing only his impressive antlers and the cow flicking her ears, barely visible above the meadow where they lay contentedly chewing their cuds. One photographer told a new arrival he’d been there for most of the day and that the pair had stood for about three minutes an hour ago. The female finally got up and began browsing on the sage, under the watchful eye of her mate, but the trophy bull eluded the lenses. We left after sunset, a line of hopeful photographers still silhouetted against the darkening sky.
As we drank coffee the next morning, a cow moose and her calf ambled right through the campground, browsing on the bright red hips of wild roses. Later in the day we saw herds of bison in the meadow near the campground, and a fast-moving herd of antelope in the distance. Assorted hoofprints and bison “cowpies” told us the herds had only recently crossed the road. We moved to a campsite that would afford full sun for our solar panels and Terry spotted a great horned owl, obviously well-fed, who took a perch in a nearby tree, watching us. Of course I’m snapping away with my little point-and-shoot Canon with no telephoto lens, thrilled nonetheless to be in the midst of such critter abundance.
We love observing animal tracks and scat, and the campground has deposits from both moose (ovals the size of songbird eggs, which can be burned as incense when dried – we’ve tried it) and elk droppings, which look and smell like Hershey’s chocolate kisses. At a closed-for-the-season camp bathroom I found some very fresh scat that included an undigested rodent head.. Our new scat and track ID chart, along with a naturalist at the visitor center, both indicate gray wolf and I’m hoping it was, thrilled to think of a wolf sidling through the campground in the dark of a drizzly night. They’ve been moving into this area from Yellowstone to the north.
This is bear country and tent campers must keep all food and toiletries in heavy metal containers shared among campsites. Each year on average 14 black or grizzly bears are destroyed because they’ve become habituated to people food., and even dishwater must be taken to a special sink for draining. It’s definitely a disincentive to tenting! Signs everywhere warn “A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear,” and who’d want that terrible responsibility? Right now bears are packing on four pounds a day in preparation for mid-November hibernation. We’re heading to an area where old 399 and her now-emancipated cubs have been hanging out, on a slim chance of a sighting.
Everyone’s here for the wildlife, along in some cases it’s preferred on a plate.The Tetons are drop-dead gorgeous. Seduced for many years by California’s spectacular coast, I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful this part of the world is -- and that mountains were my first love. We’re in the Gros Ventre campground where, for the princely sum of $9 a night we look out on a sage-dotted meadow where moose and bison and antelope roam, backed by the jagged peaks of the snow-dusted mountains. The leaves are just beginning to turn gold.
This is the best park for wildlife viewing in the U.S. The first night after setting up camp we joined a dozen other campers in a meadow, where a moose pair taunted photographers with tripods and expensive telephoto lenses, the bull showing only his impressive antlers and the cow flicking her ears, barely visible above the meadow where they lay contentedly chewing their cuds. One photographer told a new arrival he’d been there for most of the day and that the pair had stood for about three minutes an hour ago. The female finally got up and began browsing on the sage, under the watchful eye of her mate, but the trophy bull eluded the lenses. We left after sunset, a line of hopeful photographers still silhouetted against the darkening sky.
As we drank coffee the next morning, a cow moose and her calf ambled right through the campground, browsing on the bright red hips of wild roses. Later in the day we saw herds of bison in the meadow near the campground, and a fast-moving herd of antelope in the distance. Assorted hoofprints and bison “cowpies” told us the herds had only recently crossed the road. We moved to a campsite that would afford full sun for our solar panels and Terry spotted a great horned owl, obviously well-fed, who took a perch in a nearby tree, watching us. Of course I’m snapping away with my little point-and-shoot Canon with no telephoto lens, thrilled nonetheless to be in the midst of such critter abundance.
We love observing animal tracks and scat, and the campground has deposits from both moose (ovals the size of songbird eggs, which can be burned as incense when dried – we’ve tried it) and elk droppings, which look and smell like Hershey’s chocolate kisses. At a closed-for-the-season camp bathroom I found some very fresh scat that included an undigested rodent head.. Our new scat and track ID chart, along with a naturalist at the visitor center, both indicate gray wolf and I’m hoping it was, thrilled to think of a wolf sidling through the campground in the dark of a drizzly night. They’ve been moving into this area from Yellowstone to the north.
This is bear country and tent campers must keep all food and toiletries in heavy metal containers shared among campsites. Each year on average 14 black or grizzly bears are destroyed because they’ve become habituated to people food., and even dishwater must be taken to a special sink for draining. It’s definitely a disincentive to tenting! Signs everywhere warn “A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear,” and who’d want that terrible responsibility? Right now bears are packing on four pounds a day in preparation for mid-November hibernation. We’re heading to an area where old 399 and her now-emancipated cubs have been hanging out, on a slim chance of a sighting.
Everyone’s here for the wildlife, along in some cases it’s preferred on a plate. Photos at:http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/GrandTetons1#