A Spring Walk in the Park!

Okay, you may have a different picture in your mind of a spring walk in the park, than the reality of a spring walk in Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole. I went on a hike there with two of my girlfriends yesterday - we had a blast. The weather cleared just as we reached the trailhead (I couldn't even see the road in front of me, fogged in, on the drive there) and it was a fabulous, fun and breathtakingly beautiful day!

This is what a Spring Hike looks like in Jackson Hole:

This is where the water will come rushing down the mountainside in the "Spring" (more like late summer at this rate)

Wende (Birthday Girl) and Sally on the way to Lake Bradley

Look Mom - I have friends! See we all are wearing bright Spring colors,
that's how you can tell what season it is here (ignore the Spring Snow)!

Thank goodness my kids are grown up - everyone out here carries their kids in backpacks while skiing, snowshoeing, snowboarding etc. This is our Associate Pastor and his friend with their kids on a "walk" in the Park. Looks like a lot of work to me:)

Look like the 2nd day of Spring to you? Wish you could have sound with this picture - there were birds chirping, I swear!

Beautiful Bradley Lake - ice fishing anyone??

This was the trailhead sign. They actually stand about 3-4 feet tall. This was the only trail sign that was visible on the entire hike! Good thing that we had a good sense of direction. We also had Sally accidentally leaving a trail of Pistachio shells unknowingly. Would have been funny to turn around and see a bear following the shell trail!

On our way back into town from our adventure we stopped for lunch and this is one of the front page headlines on our Daily Paper:

JACKSON HOLE DAILY

Bears emerging around Jackson

By Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

March 21, 2011

Several people have reported seeing bear tracks in Grand Teton National Park and the Gros Ventre drainage, and wildlife managers say it’s time for people to consider carrying bear spray when in the backcountry.

One set of tracks was seen by a Park Service employee who was skiing March 13, Grand Teton spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said. “I heard that folks saw tracks of what appeared to be a grizzly sow and yearling cub in the Gros Ventre drainage,” he said.

...“This time of year, it’s going to be a small number of bears relative to what there would be in the summer,” he said. “Statistically, in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, 50 percent of all [adult] male grizzly bears are out by mid-March,” Cain said. “We most commonly see bears in the lower elevations, particularly on the valley floors. They’ll be looking for areas that have melted out — [and] for winter-killed ungulates.

...Cain said mid-March is a good time for people to start carrying bear spray again. He pointed out that a park employee was mauled by a grizzly on March 4, 2001. 

Needless to say, we were very glad that Sally had brought bells and bear spray (and more importantly that she read the directions on the bear spray can when we were still in the parking lot). We were even more pleased that none of us had seen the Daily Paper BEFORE our hike!

Yet another beautiful day in Jackson Hole. A Winter-weather advisory is in effect for the next few days - shouldn't they rename it a Springtime "winter-like" weather advisory....it is spring after all. Barry & I always laugh thinking about what a blast the weather newscasters in KC would have with this weather. Here they don't even mention the storms, you have to look it up on the National Weather website!

A peek out our front door this morning as the snow fell. Spring is in the Air - it is just frozen!!!

Jackson Hole Interesting Fact:

The Bridger-Teton National Forest is the largest national forest in the lower 48 states, encompassing 1,694,574 acres.