Bears!

One of the most remarkable things that happened on this trip was seeing a bear in the wild.  We had our first bear encounter on an early morning hike around Jenny Lake.  We came out of a cluster of trees and noticed a big black bear foraging around on the trail above us.  We stopped, and right after pulling out our bear spray, we all pulled out our phones and cameras and started taking pictures and videos of the bear.  :-)  The bear saw us, but didn't seem bothered or interested in us.  Still, we kept our distance and watched him/her for at least 20 minutes.  Then we turned around and went back the way we came, just to be safe and avoid startling or annoying the bear further along on the trail. 

Later that same day at Grand Tetons, while driving up Signal Mountain, we rounded a bend to find a young grizzly bear meandering along the road.  The following day, while driving through Grand Tetons on our way to Yellowstone, we saw park rangers and a few vehicles pulled over to the side of the road watching 3 grizzlies out in the meadow.  So, after having never seen a bear on any of our previous excursions, we saw several on this trip.  The most memorable one was the first one, when it was just us and the black bear out in the middle of the forest.  Amazing!

The cutest little bear of all:

Black bear near Jenny Lake:

See it in the background?

Grizzly Bears: