We headed to the popular Jenny Lake area for this weekend's hike, but decided to diverge from the crowded path and try a trail called Moose Ponds. It promised views of wildlife.
Along the way we stopped to marvel at the wildflowers and paused in appreciation of the landscape's diversity. We started on the lake's edges, but ended up trampling through meadows in the hot sun and then shuffling over a pine-needled walkway.
When a stream babbled across our path, we tiptoed across a fallen tree trunk. We thought we were almost home free, and then a sign stopped us in our tracks.
"DANGER: Due to bear activity beyond this sign, CLOSED to all travel."
A metal bear trap reflected the sunlight under a distant tree, so we switched our route and detoured around the bear zone. Rangers regularly trap & relocate bears who repeatedly encroach on campgrounds and trails. Bears learn this behavior when humans feed them or leave food or garbage out for them to eat.
We laughed on the way back because we had just purchased bear spray, a more intense kind of pepper spray. We totally thought we were over-reacting to carry it on all our hikes. It will remain on our backpack.
2 comments:
Some of those pictures are so pretty, they don't even look real.
There's such a product as "bear spray"? Something tells me it'd be somewhat difficult to get up in the bear's face to apply it.
bear spray is just like a listerine strip
martin
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