Bears, Thunderstorms and Even Some Fishing: I’m Back Out West!

After a long and troublesome day of flying yesterday, I just barely made it out to Jackson.  Summer in VT and back at home home in MD has been very good to me, but man I love coming out to Jackson.  Everything just moves at a totally different wavelength out west and it’s a welcome change of pace from the humid and warm east coast.

This morning, we finally left the house after a late start, heading on our way towards our normal first day hike up to Taggart and Bradley lakes.

Driving across the Moose-Wilson road, we came across this cinnamon black bear cub.  While everyone was stopping to take photos, he was just doing his thing, not caring in the slightest bit about the hordes of camera-wielding tourons.

After a short stop in Moose (we needed some of those amazing butterscotch cookies), we realized that our hike today wasn’t going to happen: the skies were clouding up and darkening rather quickly.  Instead, we opted to just take a drive through the park.  Just as we had suspected, it wasn’t long before the deluge began.

On our way back towards Jackson we stopped at this classic photo spot.

Later in the evening, after the weather had cleared up a bit, we spent some time fishing on the Gros Ventre.  I knew that it had been a banner snow year and the runoff had likewise been enormous this year, but it didn’t really hit me until we got to the river.  It was huge and fast!  It took us a few minutes to convince my father that this was the same spot that we had been fishing as last year, as the river was so changed.  With the water moving as fast as it was, it was no wonder that I didn’t catch anything.  Oh well, we’ve got plenty more time to fish out here.

Overlooking the Gros Ventre river in the evening.

Man I’m so glad to finally be back out west.  Although the weather today was a bit off, the rest of the week looks roughly about perfect.  Let’s just hope the fishing falls into place soon.