Rhody Goes West: Mount Glory and Goodbyes

On our last full day in Wyoming, we all woke up very early to go for one last hike.  This hike is one that doesn't exist on trail maps or on any brochures of the area. Known only to the locals, we parked on the side of the road by what is known as "the pass" and then crossed the road to start our hike up Mount Glory. This was one of the most difficult hikes of the entire trip, and I would compare it to the hike we took to get up to Delicate Arch in Moab.

The first part of the hike was a 1600 foot climb, but that was only 3/4 mile of the 6 mile hike! Going essentially straight up was so difficult, especially since we were starting at an 8400 foot elevation. If you have never experienced athletic activities at an elevation that is so drastically different than the one that you typically reside in, then you really can't imagine how hard it is to breathe. While I'm not in as great of shape as I used to be, I really didn't think I would have such a hard time breathing while just walking at a quick pace, never mind walking straight up 1600 feet!

View from Mount Glory, Jackson, Wyoming

But, as difficult as the initial climb was, it was so worth it, because the view from the top of Mount Glory was beautiful.  With it not being a part of the Grand Tetons, you could see the backside of those mountains in the distance among all of the other smaller mountains in the area.  We took some time up here at the top while we waited for the rest of the group to finish up the steep climb, and since we had left so early, we ate breakfast while we waited. After all, it was only 7:30am!

You can actually see our cars parked along side the road in this picture - Top of Mount Glory, Jackson, Wyoming

Me at the Peak of Mount Glory, Jackson, Wyoming

Once everyone had reached the top and had enough time to recover, we started our trek down one side of this mountain and then up to the top of an adjoining one. The top of the next mountain was very rocky, such a different landscape than the grassy pebble filled peak of the last one.

Rocky Peak of Mount Glory, Jackson, Wyoming

Once we got to the other side of this mountain, of which was very steep and slippery because of the rocks going down, we came across the most beautiful wildflower meadow that was leading us into the woods for the next leg of our hike.  I was really looking forward to seeing these large areas of wildflowers, however, this ended up being the only one that we actually saw! Most of the large fields in this area of the country are actually grain and grass fields and not wildflowers, like I originally thought.

Wildflowers on Mount Glory, Jackson, Wyoming

The rest of the hike was very cool too, leading us through the forest, then down some winding hillsides, leading us to a lake nestled between the mountains.  We rested here again, waiting for the rest if the group to catch up, and then we finished off the last mile and a half, where we came off the trail at an entrance at the bottom of "the pass."

Ski Lake, Jackson, Wyoming

In order to get back up to the cars at the top, we had to hitchhike, so me and D's uncle flagged down a guy in a pickup, who let us hop in the back of the truck bed and brought us up to the top of "the pass."  We grabbed the cars and drove them back down the mountain and picked everyone back up.  This was actually my first time hitchhiking! 

On our way back to the house, and on our last day, we finally saw one of the animals I was looking forward to seeing most - the moose.  New England has moose, but not in Rhode Island, and aside from seeing them on TV and in print, I had never seen a moose in person. But, lo and behold, standing on the side of the road in someone's front yard was a young male moose.  He was so interested in eating the leaves off of the trees that he really didn't care how close we got to him, so I ended up being only about 30 feet away from him.

Moose - Jackson, Wyoming

Moose - Jackson, Wyoming

I was so surprised at how skinny they were! I knew that moose were really tall animals, but I didn't think they would be this narrow. I was figuring that they would be built more like a deer or a horse, but they are so skinny!

Just before sunset, when we were back at the house, I set myself up right next to the hummingbird feeder on the back deck to see if I could grab some pictures of the hummingbirds.  There must have been eight or nine hummingbirds swarming around the feeder, and they were so calm that they allowed me to get four inches away from their feeder with my camera. I was standing so close to the feeder that I could feel the air moving from their wings fluttering at the feeder.  It was so amazing, and using the continuous shot feature on my camera I took over 300 pictures of the little birds.

Hummingbirds - Jackson, Wyoming

This last evening was the perfect way to unwind at the end of the vacation - we relaxed in the river, hung out, had a delicious dinner, and then said our goodbyes to family and new friends, as we had a five hour drive back to Salt Lake City in the morning to catch our afternoon flight.  

And this is the final post of my Rhody Goes West series. I am finally done recapping this incredible trip.  All in all, this was one of the best vacations that I have had - it was full of activities, most of which were physical, and we were also able to visit with family.  I actually am really looking forward to another vacation out to this area, and can't wait to explore more of the West side of our amazing country!!

Rhody Goes West: Grand Tetons

After we left Yellowstone National Park, we began our drive down to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, driving through the Grand Tetons on our way.  

Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming, USA

The drive was beautiful, and the roads were narrow and winding around the border of the mountains.  You could even see snow at the top, and it was actually snow this time, not sulfur, like I had thought in Yellowstone.  

Grand Tetons - Wyoming, USA

Since we had spent the morning in Yellowstone checking out the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Grand Prismatic, we didn't have time to hike that afternoon, and the next day was the Bar Mitzvah, the entire reason for taking this trip, so we just spent the afternoon settling in and visiting with D's family.  

Neither D nor I had ever been to a Bar Mitzvah, so it was very neat to see D's cousin choose to make Judaism part of his life.

D and I at Teton Village - Jackson, Wyoming

The day after the Bar Mitzvah, we went back to Grand Teton National Park and decided to a hike along one of the trails.  D's uncle is a park ranger, so he brought us along to one of the trails that he and his family like best.

All along the trail, you could see the tops of the mountains, and it was beautiful.

Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming, USA

In the middle of the trail was a beautiful lake that overlooked the mountains.  The lake had all of these dead tree trunks in it that made the water look so cool.  And speaking of cool, the water was so cold! We stopped here for a while and had some lunch and then once we were done with our sandwiches and snacks, we got back on the trail to walk to the end and then head back to Jackson.  

Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming, USA

D and I at Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming, USA

It was a great little hike, and a warm up for what was to come tomorrow, our last full day of vacation.  

Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming, USA

We ended up just hanging out at the house and spending time with D's family that was still in town from the Bar Mitzvah, which was a welcome treat since they live so far away.  We walked up to the river behind D's aunt and uncle's house and we all went swimming, but when we were walking up the path to the river, I heard a screech.  I looked up into the trees and saw two Bald Eagles sitting on the branch of a tree.  

Male and Female Bald Eagle - Snake River, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

One was a male and the other was a female, and you can see the size difference more in the picture below.  They were only about twenty feet above my head, and they were so cool to see this close - much better than the Eagle we saw in Yellowstone.  

Male and Female Bald Eagle - Snake River, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

We must have spooked them though, because they didn't stay for long. In fact, they started looking around for an escape route since we came down to the river with eleven people. I actually caught their taking off on camera too, so take a look at the video below.

Male and Female Bald Eagle - Snake River, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The river was so relaxing, and judging by the Eagles sitting on the tree branch, they would agree.  It was a perfect, relaxing, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of day.  

Snake River, Jackson Wyoming

With only one more day in Wyoming before our drive back to Salt Lake City, we had a big hike planned and some more family time.  This was the perfect ending to a wonderful trip.

Rhody Goes West: Bison, and Eagles, and Bucks, Oh My!

Well, I may have saved the best for last.  

As you can tell by the title of this post, this post is about all of the wildlife that we saw while we were in Yellowstone National Park.  It started literally about ten minutes after we entered the park on the first day, and was practically non-stop until we were exiting the park.  

Since there were so many animals that we saw, I wanted to dedicate an entire post to them, especially since they ones that Rhode Islanders definitely don't see frequently, or at all for that matter.  I'm not really going to go in the order in which we saw the animals, but instead, I am going to categorize by the animals.  

So, here we go.  Within ten minutes of driving through the entrance to the park, I got a neat little alert on my phone, from an App I downloaded called YNP Wildlife, where park visitors can use the GPS on their phone to upload data on wildlife sightings.  Now, while you may be thinking that this is genius for wildlife seekers, it is. But, this is the only alert that I got - but by no fault of the app. You see, there are about three places within Yellowstone National Park that have cell service, which means that the entire rest of the trip, I drained out my phone battery waiting to get into a cell area so I could find wildlife. So, I don't recommend that this app be used - not because the app isn't great, but just because there is no service in Yellowstone, so you can't use the app.  

This first alert was for a herd of antelope that were along side the road by a creek.  There must have been about twenty of them feeding in the grasses. There were cars lined up and parked along side of the road, and some people were trying to get as close as possible to get pictures. We didn't get out of the car, but this was a warm welcome to the park, especially since the wildlife was one of the things I was looking forward to most.  

A few days later, we ended up coming across more antelope, this time though, they were very young and were much lighter in color.  The markings on them are so neat, and while the picture below isn't very clear thanks to my camera having an absolutely awful digital zoom, you can still see the markings up along it's breast and neck.  This little one was running in the field with it's mother, heading towards the other females in the group that were laying in the shade under some trees.  I really wish that we had been able to see some males, because the long straight antlers that have the same markings as the skin are so cool.

Onto some other four-legged creatures now.  Everywhere you go in Yellowstone, you are sure to come by either one of these or an entire herd.  What are they?

American Bison.  And they are everywhere.  They also don't care at all about where you are, because if they're in a spot that makes them happy, they're not going to move, for the most part.  This is both awesome and scary at the same time.  The awesome part is that you are able to get pictures like these.

The not so awesome part, and the part that is scary is that you don't know if being that close will actually scare them or make them angry, and there's no way to tell if they will charge or not.  

While these animals may look small outside of the car window, they actually are not at all, and if I were standing next to them, the top of their back would be at about chest level.  So, for size comparison, I took a lovely picture for you - of their poop.  You see, it was everywhere, because they are everywhere - duh - so you had to avoid it on the hiking trails, on the roads, and even on the grounds of the hotels and campgrounds.  So, just to show you how large they are, and how large their poops are, here you go.  Enjoy.  Oh, and by the way, that's my husband's foot, and he wears a size 11 shoe, so that's not a small foot or poop.  

The herds of bison were everywhere and ranged from just a handful to hundreds.  When driving by the open fields, you could see small black specks in the grasses and in some spots there literally were hundreds of bison.  

I must tell you, I took probably over a hundred pictures of bison.  There were so many, and I was so interested in them. Plus, they are really weird looking if you stop and think about how low their heads are and how small the rear end of their body is compared to the front. It really makes you wonder how they don't just tip over onto their heads.

Moving on - while deer are everywhere in the United States, it's not often that you see a large buck in New England.  Especially one with 6-points on each side.  To us Rhode Islanders, this is a very uncommon sighting, and this guy was just hanging out on the side of the road with a buddy.  I took this picture out the window of the car, and you can actually see the curb of the road in the lower left corner. Like the American Bison, he really didn't care that we had pulled up next to him and that he was being stalked by about fifteen people on foot.  

He was so beautiful and elegant, but can you imagine walking around with two giant antlers on your head? I can't even begin to think how many trees he's probably bashed his head into because of the size of those antlers.  

One of the neatest things that we saw was while we were driving on a 7-mile nature trail, and it ended up being the only nature we saw on the drive, other than the trees, of course.

While I was sitting in the front seat, I heard a screeching noise, and as I looked to my left, I saw a bird diving down to the ground. It hid in the tall grasses for a few minutes and all we could see was the grass moving around, because it was so tall that the bird was completely hidden.  After about ten or fifteen seconds, I was able to get this shot, which couldn't have been better timing!

This bird, which I believe I have identified as a Red-Tailed Hawk, swooped down to catch this pretty good sized Linta Ground Squirrel, carrying it off to devour. It was one of the coolest things I have seen, and while some may thing that it is sad that this ground squirrel became dinner to a family of hawks, such is nature and the circle of life.

We ended up coming across one of those Linta Ground Squirrels on a hike in a meadow, so I snapped a picture hoping that it would help me with the identification of the little critter. It was actually kind of cute, especially with it's short little tail, but for a hawk, I can see why it would be considered a good meal, considering how good sized it is in person!

Staying with the bird theme, when we were in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone there were pillars of stone in one of the sections, where Ospreys had made a nest and two younglings sat.  The mother was sitting off to the side as if she was angry at her babies while the two in the nest were walking in circles and screaming out for her.  We had a really great view using our binoculars, but yet again, the digital zoom on my regular point-and-shoot camera isn't the greatest, so this picture is kind of grainy.  

Unknown to me, Yellowstone is apparently a natural habitat for pelicans, but not the kind that you typically see pictures of in Georgia or Florida. These are White Pelicans, which are smaller in size and completely white with a bright orange beak.  This photo was taken the second time I had seen the pelican. The first time he was swimming in this little pond, I had noticed him, but not with enough time to grab my camera and snap a picture.  The next day, as we were driving past that same pond, I kept a lookout, and when I saw him, we pulled over and I was able to grab a picture of him. He's a little difficult to see below, but he's in the right bottom corner, with his throat open, snacking on some fish. 

The last bird that we saw that is worth mentioning was the one that I was looking forward to seeing the most. Having never seen one outside of captivity, the Bald Eagle was high on my list.  I was able to see this eagle twice, and like my experience with the pelican, the first time I saw him, I was unable to grab my camera to take a picture.  This next time, though, I was ready.

He was absolutely beautiful.  I can't even explain how regal he was. Sitting on the branch of a pine tree, overlooking to river, waiting for a fish so he could have his morning meal.  

The binoculars were very useful, and watching him watch us was very cool to see close up.  I attempted to take a few pictures using the binoculars against my camera lens, so while you can see him closer, the quality didn't come out perfectly.  I really should invest in a better camera at some point.  

It was so cool to be able to see an eagle, especially since he was just sitting in the tree, not concerned with any of us.  I really wish that he was closer and had moved a little bit more, but seeing him was still perfect and fulfilled my wishes.

That just about sums up our wildlife experience in pictures.  We were able to see a few coyotes and actually a brown bear ran across the road in front of us as we were leaving the park, but it literally happened so quickly that I barely saw it and D didn't see it at all, so there's no photographic evidence.  So while I guess that counts as seeing a bear, I'm not sure that I actually count it, and D definitely doesn't.  But, I guess that's a lot better than coming in contact with a bear and getting mauled, right?! 

The only other animal that I wish we had a chance to see was a big-horned sheep.  You bet that I had my eyes on the rock cliffs at every moment possible, but those guys are quite shy and really don't like to be seen.  If only I had cell service though, because as soon as we got to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the YNP Wildlife app let me know that a herd of fourteen big-horned sheep were sighted in an area we were two days prior.  Figures, right?! Only my luck.

Which animals are on your must-see list?  Can you imagine if we had some sort of weird antler-like thing attached to our heads? How weird would that be?