Fun With Bears

I got up early and wandered around Mammoth, communing with the elk on the lawns and in the hills.  Got some coffee for us and we had just started drinking it when Mark said the bugling outside sounded really close.  I went out to check and indeed there was a bull elk right by the cabins.  He was happily munching the lawn.  Rangers and security personnel came to make sure no one got too close and eventually a ranger herded the guy away.

We hadn't used our bear spray so Mark donated it to the rangers at the visitor center and they were happy to receive it.  Shortly after leaving the Mammoth area, we passed the state border into Montana.  Just after that were some people on the roadside, including a ranger.  There was a family of elk enjoying the late morning sun and the river, a lovely spot for them.  One guy had been down photographing the elk across the stream and didn't realize that another one came up right  behind him.  He had to leave quickly and leave his camera on its tripod behind.  One ranger called another who came with bear spray in hand, just in case, gingerly walked down and retrieved the camera gear.  This reminds me, I haven't mentioned before how many people in Grand Teton and Yellowstone have cameras with huge lenses and tripods.  The parks sure attract the avid photographers.  After taking our own photos, we continued on our drive.  We passed the 45th meridian, halfway between the equator and the north pole.  Pretty neat!

When we got to Gardiner, the closest town to the north entrance of Yellowstone, it was a bit of a shock to the system.  We'd been in the park wilderness for 10 days and seeing commercial development, even in a tiny town, looked odd.  Gardiner is a cute little town with a population of around 850.  Some of the park employees live here and there are adjunct facilities such as warehouses and distribution centers for Yellowstone's service providers.  It also has a travertine quarry.

The drive to Livingston on scenic route 89 was very pretty, all rural with lots of hay and cattle and horses.  This area has been in the films A River Runs Through It and The Horse Whisperer.  Some of the Hollywood set have homes here.  We stopped in Livingston to see the old railroad station, a restored 1902 Northern Pacific depot.  It was designed by the architects who designed Grand Central Station.  Livingston was settled in 1882 when the tracks of the Northern Pacific reached this point along the Yellowstone River.  Visitors to the new national park would change trains here to go south to Cinnabar (no longer in existence) and later Gardiner, where they would get on stagecoaches for the Grand Tour of Yellowstone.

We didn't see any grizzly bears in Yellowstone but we did at the Montana Grizzly Encounter about ten miles east of Bozeman.  This is a sanctuary for bears who cannot be in the wild.  They have five bears.  Brutus is a 9-year old Alaska brown bear.  He's been in a couple of movies and along with his trainer Casey (who talked to us) is featured in National Geographic programs.  He and Casey host Expedition Wild, a National Geographic series.  Brutus came to the sanctuary as a baby.  Sheena is a 25-year old grizzly bear.  She spent the first 18 years of her life in a cage barely big enough to move around in.  She's been at the sanctuary six years and is still a bit moody from her captivity.  She and Brutus are buddies.  Sheena is the "top dog" and has been since the day she met Brutus.  She looks like a big teddy bear, just gorgeous.  There are two six-year-old bears who we didn't meet.  Then there is Lucy, around nine months old.  She was found abandoned in Alaska.  No one knows what happened to her mother.  Lucy was around three months old and should have weighed 75 pounds; she weighed 12.  She wasn't much more than a day away from starvation.  She first went to a bear rescue facility in Sitka but they didn't have room for her long term so the USDA folks who work with bear rescues called Casey and Ami and they gave Lucy her forever home.  Ami has been working with her and today was just Lucy's third day in the big outdoor space on her own and with people like us watching her.  What a little doll, just makes you laugh out loud to watch her having fun.  She has a magpie friend who likes to be near her.  Check out their website (www.grizzlyencounter.org), Facebook page, and the National Geographic programs.  We had a great time and stayed for over two hours just watching the bears and talking to the people who own the sanctuary.

We spent the night in Bozeman.