Segway 2: Coffee and Cribbage, or The Hunt for Bears

Now that the field school students have officially been sent home I have some time to breathe!  Here is the story of how my friend Brandon and I did not see ANY bears during a two day trip to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons during the field school’s second four-day break.

After taking care of field school business in the morning, Brandon and I headed north on the Chief Joseph scenic highway to approach Cooke City, the northeast entrance to Yellowstone.  The highway runs through Sunlight Basin, pound for pound the most gorgeous stretch of highway in the U.S.

 (Our field school did survey work here after I went home in 2008.  I am so jealous!)

We saw the sights in Yellowstone on our way down to the Grand Tetons.  Brandon in particular was on the hunt for a bear after watching a few episodes of “Grizzly Man”.  Personally I could do without bear encounters of any sort, and thankfully we missed all the bears on our first day (though there was plenty of the Mighty Bison around!)

 (At the top of Mammoth Hot Springs, aka I am a pretty huge dork!)

 (Old Faithful erupts – in the snow!)

Eventually we made it to the Grand Tetons for our backcountry camping trip.  My camera ran out of juice just in time for the trip, so you will just have to trust me that it was beautiful!  Backcountry in the Grand Tetons this early in the season doesn’t really feel all that remote – we packed in to our campsite and took a tour around the lake only to discover that there were restrooms on the other side of the lake!  Most of the hiking was cut short because of impassible snowdrifts covering the trail.  So aside from some light hiking, Brandon and I mostly sat around drinking coffee and playing cribbage – fun times in my book : )

 (Gratuitous, Grand Tetons.)

 

 (The only bear I saw during the whole trip attempts to devour a mountain of nachos after we “returned” to civilization.)