Thursday, July 7, 2011

Yellowstone Grizzly

We left our RV site early Sunday morning to drive up to Mammoth Hot Springs in the northern area of the park. Soon after passing the Norris Junction we saw several cars ahead had stopped and folks were standing on the roadside. At the same time, Frank spotted a grizzly to our left down an embankment. The bear was about 30-35 yards away and he was walking slowly in a direction parallel to the road - stopping to paw the ground for grubs. I jumped out of the truck with my telephoto and got some great shots. (I carefully calculated the distance to the safety of the truck, the distance and interest of the bear, and the number of other spectators on the road - I always like to think there is safety in numbers).This is my favorite picture - he had just lost interest in the grubs and had started moving in a direction toward the road, so I prudently retreated back to the safety of the truck. I also included a screenshot from my National Geographic Park Maps ( a fantastic app for the iPad. It allows you to place pins on the maps for notations - then pull them up for later viewing.)





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