Grand Teton National Park

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Where’s the Moose?!

If there is an unofficial animal for Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park it would have America’s largest deer. The moose is featured in and on paintings, sculpture, bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats, postcards, etc. A moose rack hangs above the four famed Antler Arches in the Jackson Town Square, each painted with the words: “Jackson Hole, Wy”.

The Antler Arches of Jackson. A few words come to mind, “tacky” and “garish” are but two.

Now finding a moose should be as easy as throwing a snowball and hitting a millionaire in Jackson. I started my search turning left at Moose Junction and heading southwest on Moose-Wilson Road (no joke). I drove down and back, no moose! I searched the ponds and creeks in the area, ideal moose habitat, no moose! I checked all the moose hotspots in the park, no moose! I searched areas outside of the park like the Gros Ventre River, no moose (but I did see my first herd of bison). Who knew that finding the world’s largest deer would prove to be so tough? I returned to the Anvil Hotel, crestfallen, that I have not seen my first moose in one of the moosest National Parks in the world.

Not a moose but the first of many bison in Grand Teton and Yellowstone.

I lit out of Jackson early because there was a storm bearing snow, soon to arrive and I wanted to make all the passes in Yellowstone so I could make it to my digs in the town of West Yellowstone, Montana. I left at 8:00 AM and stopped to fuel up. I headed north toward Grand Teton and Yellowstone, past a picnic area and this is what I saw:

And just when I wasn’t searching for a moose, I found moose! A cow with her calf.

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Grand Teton National Park

If you are going to one, you have to go to the other. Grand Teton and Yellowstone are next door neighbors and if you pay to get into one then it seemed like a great “twofer” deal. And it certainly was!

Grand Teton National Park lies to the south of Yellowstone. When you think of what an archetypical mountain range might look like then a picture of the Grand Teton range might be the photograph that appears in the dictionary definition of “mountain range”.

IMG_1732Now that’s what I call a mountain range!

It was while I was out on a moose mission (see my next post)  in the northern part of the park when I came upon cars pulled over on both sides of the road and a ranger keeping visitors at bay. Now this is always is a good sign. At first I though that everyone must be looking at a roadside bison. There was a large brown creature foraging in the field to the right side of the road. But no, it was so much more. It was a lone grizzly bear fattening up before it’s winter hibernation.

The grizzly bear is the official state mammal of California, but the only place you will see is a grizz in on the state flag. We are are the only state in the union to have an extinct official state mammal. The last grizzly in California was killed in 1922. One was reported to have been seen two years later in Sequoia National Park and since then, no grizzly has ever been seen in California.

A sketch from my photo of the grizzly.