Bear Bums and Dino Bones Road Trip - Day 6 Cabin In The Woods

[kirstenjet]

Today did not have a good start . Bad night sleep for me, with multiple visits to the loo making me think I had food poisoning. I won't go into details! After mosquitoes got the better of us yesterday I made sure to use the Jungle Fever DEET spray before we left. What I didn't realise til later, was it was the DEET making me ill

Still got out early though as I was determind we'd be on an early boat across Jenny Lake to do the big (for us!) hike into Cascade Canyon. Had to take abit of time getting ready at the car, packing back packs etc as I was starting to feel ill again but didn't want to ruin the day. The boat ride price came as a bit of a shocker, $18 return for a 10 min trip but the fresh air and wind felt fantastic. The view wasn't too bad either...and I was going to insert a beautiful photo I took of the mountains getting closer but it seems I was so ill I forgot to take any!

When we got off the boat we waited til everyone had gone ahead. It's quite narrow and I knew I would be slow as the path has a drop one side to start with and I'm so scared of heights and incredibly clumsy to boot. I'd bought trekking poles and I found it helped massively as I felt much more safe and secure. At first I did feel a bit dumb using them as people were almost skipping up in flipflops but I couldn't have walked up there without them.
We got as far as the first stop at Hidden Falls and started to go up to the next stop of Inspiration Point before I very reluctantly admitted I couldn't go any further.

As upset as I was (we manged less than 2 miles instead of a 10 round trip ) what we did see was amazing and just being on the mountain even at the bottom left me awestruck. These seem to be the only photos I can find

A private boat ride across the lake as no one else was returning yet, I was very thankful to be back somewhere that had sanitation

After getting changed, as we'd been dressed for walking into snow instead of 70s, I had to snooze in the car for an hour. Of course this had to be a day we were moving hotels so couldn't go back to a room. Starting to feel better we had another walk around the Jenny Lake area. A ranger was out doing a talk about bears and had skins of a grizzly and black bear with the claws so people could touch and get a safe close look. I asked the obvious question where have the bears been seen today and it was the Jenny Lake scenic drive so
we went straight to it. We drove round it a few times but had no luck.

We decided to head out to the Gros Ventre road as we hadn't been out there yet and we read its a good place to find moose.

Stopped at a pull out and had a walk along the river but no luck spotting anything

Lunch was a trip to Dornans, which has some a shop, deli some cafes and cabins to rent. We got sandwiches from the deli so we could keep driving. We sat outside the toilets of all places for a little while watching the wildlife, Cliff Swallows has built a colony above the doors! I apologies in advance if anyone has trypophobia

Back to driving the loop we passed the hotel we were staying at that's inside Grand Tetons so we thought we'd see if we could check in early. We were in luck! I was really excited as this was our first night of 5 staying in cabins. Rachel on the other hand wasn't quite so thrilled, talking about serial killers and cabins in the woods never ending well.

What the photo doesn't show is there's about abother 30 cabins around us so we were hardly isolated! For one of the cheap cabins that says it doesn't have a view, I didn't think it was so bad...( I have the photo this time )

An hour or so later, feeling rested we were back looking for wildlife. We saw the elk again at Willow Flats. There was a ranger here as well, answering questions and she had a scope for people to use. We were more interested in the bird of prey we couldn't identify than the elk (they were still too far to see without binoculars). Ranger told us it was a northern harrier.

Also stopped at Oxbow Bend ( yes more mountain pics )

Oxbow Bend

before making trying our luck at Gros Ventre Road. We saw a few people at a pull out looking over the other side of the river. After much searching with the binoculars, there he was! A big bull moose almost hidden. The ranger had told us ealier there was only about 70-75 moose in Grand Tetons so we were very happy to find one.

We tried the Jenny Lake Scenic drive another 3 times on the way back looking for the bear with cubs but all we saw was beautiful views. Giving in, it was back to have dinner at Signal Mountain Lodge but in the main dining room this time. Seated next to the window we got to see a gorgeous sunset and enjoyed our last evening in the Tetons.

As sad as I was to leave the mountains behind, tomorrow couldn't come soon enough, we were going to Yellowstone!

[Loopylooloo]

Lovely photos, the tall trees are amazing, and your cabin looks so cute! Hope you are feeling better now.

[anji]

Great photos, especially the sunset. What a great view with dinner