Finally, a grizzly

Each day has been a new discovery. We drove to Kelly warm springs, caused by the massive Gros Ventre landslide in the ‘20s. The water remains unfrozen during the bitter winters, once a welcome resource for the settlers on Mormon Row and still visited by local bison herds, who wallow in its steaming mud on frosty mornings. Farther up, we saw the slide itself – the largest movement of land ever in the U.S., now covered by a patchwork quilt of blue-green spruce and lemon yellow aspen. The lake formed by the slide has a beautiful campground, where we could stay for only $6.
One day we found a series of badger holes at historic Mormon Row, where early settlers homesteaded, leaving behind picturesque barns, houses and buck-rail fences now part of the park. Strong diggers, the badgers had flung out rocks the size of grapefruits during their excavations -- in search of. hibernating ground squirrels, we later learned from naturalists. Some small animals were already hibernating in September and one, the marmot, goes into such a deep “sleep” its body temperature drops by half and it wouldn’t rouse even if dragged from its hole.
A coyote raised a litter of pups here at the campground this spring, and we often hear the yip-howls in early morning or night. I found her den, surprisingly close to the road. Sometimes coyotes hunt cooperatively with badgers, one unearthing and the other snatching prey. As I write this at our campsite, we can see a coyote off in the sage, throwing back its head to howl in the classic pose captured in Southwestern tourist knickknacks. Our neighborhood bull moose just wandered through, prompting a frenzied chase by those big-lens photographers.
I completed the test and got my Junior Ranger badge the other day, holding up my right hand and promising to “respect, appreciate and preserve the natural world,” while an impatient tourist rolled his eyes, waiting behind me to talk to the ranger at the visitor center. I absolutely was not the oldest Junior Ranger on record, the kindly ranger told me, saying he’d sworn in a 91-year-old the other day.
Our friendly campground neighbors, Norma and Gary, have been coming here for decades and they’ve seen it all: a young bald eagle accidentally bumped from the nest by a sibling to crash to the ground (he survived) and a mother grizzly grabbing a minutes-old elk calf, growling a warning to her two hungry cubs to remain in the protective cover of the trees. It was Gary who came over with news of the black bear the other night, prompting us to abandon dinner plans and dash off to Jenny Lake.
There, I overheard talk of “another carcass … grizzly at the dam” so we headed there the next evening, noted the “bear jam” of cars and parked. Nearly a mile out on the dam was a group of spotters, including two rangers with scopes. As the light quickly faded, we saw the grizzly working the carcass of an elk, which by now resembled an elk rug. She was the two-year-old offspring of #399, and another ranger had seen her drag the dead elk from the water several days ago. She’d been guarding it night and day, driving off even the opportunistic ravens who crept up in her shadow. A mass of coots darkened the shallows of the lake, Canada geese honked in the distance and other elk bugled in the willows across the road while we watched the grizzly. Her silver-gray body appeared massive even at this distance, and we observed the powerful hump of muscle at her shoulders. She was gorgeous.
The bear’s mother, Grizzly #399, had achieved a degree of fame two years ago because she raised three cubs often in view of humans, delighting spotters and rangers alike. A male cub was frequently spotted in Willow Flats; the whereabouts and gender of the third was unknown.
We returned at first light the next morning and the grizzly was still there, now with a coyote skirting her warily. He came close once but never risked the bear’s wrath, and finally seemed to abandon hope, crossing the dam and trotting off in the meadow.
A return to the scene of the black bear was less pleasant. The stench of the rotting elk was overpowering, and a mob of photographers – including a tourist bus – had driven the bear into the shadows of the trees.
“Send a tourist in there,” bellowed a Scot in shorts and an open vest that displayed a bear-size belly, fiddling with the long-lens camera atop a tripod. “Maybe that’ll drive the bear out.”
We left.
Pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/ADayInTeton02#5253034245516140114