Monday, November 12, 2007

Yellowstone Grizzly Bear

While visiting Yellowstone for the first time we were lucky enough to see two bears. One was a black bear at a distance while riding horses in the Roosevelt section of the park. The other was this grizzly in the area of artist point. Never seeing bears in the wild before we were cautious but still much closer than we should have been. We photographed this bear eating for some time before he looked up at us. Once he looked up he never looked away again, making me very nervous. I sent Linda and Shane back the car, returning myself after they were safely back. We did observe the main rule in bear viewing, keeping someone larger, older or slower between us and the bear.

Never seeing bears in the wild before, we could not wait to print out the photograph so we found a Kodak machine in one of the gift stores and printed this image out. Showing it to a park ranger later in the day we quickly learned we were standing close to a grizzly bear and not a black bear as we thought. He questioned us as to how close we were and we stretched the truth a bit telling him I was using a BIG lens. And you thought by the title it was going to be another Alaska grizzly bear, didn't you.

1 comment:

itsme84066 said...

As a mom I told the kids when they were little to just push the bus tourist down the hill and run! I was kidding of course but they have never forgotten it and still use that escape route if they need it!. OK ONLY KIDDING but I did tell them that and they have never forgotten and still laugh about it 12 years later. Yellowstone has always been our best family vacation.