Canyon Village to Rock Springs, WY

We've reached the giddy lights of Rock Springs, on our way back down from the make-believe realm of Yellowstone. It's a veritable metropolis of 23000 people and look, wi-fi! It's exciting, even after just a few days, to see things like traffic lights and fridges again, but I can't deny that I feel a bit sad to have left behind the wonderful world of mountains, geysers and potentially fatal animal encounters.

There's a thing called a Bear Jam (or an Elk Jam, Moose Jam or what-have-you). This is where one is driving along through the park and one sees a sudden confusion of cars parked up on the road-side and many people pointing and looking and trying to take photos whilst a park ranger frantically divides their time between directing traffic and trying not to let anyone get killed. We were very lucky to plough into one of these at the bottom of a steep slope below a line of cliffs, where all the pointy-looking people had found a bear. Three black bears in fact, a mother and two cubs. So we stopped and looked too and took lots of pictures, like this one.

And then, finally sated of the need to see bears frolicing in the wild, we got back in our car and drove off. At which point we realised there was ANOTHER huge adult bear on the other side of the road, about six feet behind all the pointy-looking people who were all pointy-looking the wrong way. Well, we were sort of off down the road by then, but I'm pretty sure that it all turned out fine.

I'm under no illusions about how dangerous bears are. For the best part of a week I've been bombarded with advice and warnings, seemingly everywhere. Bear Spray gets mentioned A LOT, especially in those little perspex triangles on restaurant tables that would normally otherwise advertise the puddings. Everybody is big on Bear Spray because it can apparently forestall a Bear Attack, providing you fire the thing correctly, remembering to allow for the crosswind whilst judiciously gauging the range and closing speed of the GREAT BIG BEAR RUNNING TOWARDS YOU. It's sold everywhere up thereabouts at the reassuring price of $45. We didn't buy any. Firstly, it's a sure-fire way to guarantee not seeing any bears. Secondly, at that price it is obviously just a tax on scared people. Thirdly, there were no refunds or returns. And then, yes, there was some evidence to suggest that bear-related injuries only occurred when the bear had been startled by a human. As long as people travelled in groups and made plenty of noise, they would probably be fine. Plenty of noise - have you met us?

Later that night, driving back over one of the mountain passes, we ran into another Bear Jam. Somewhere far below, tucked away in a fold in the land was a grizzly bear. Occasionally, as it lollopped about, it broke cover for long enough that we could actually see it, and one of the other bear jammers actually lent us his binoculars to have a look, which was very decent of him. But yes, we had now seen all the bears and could go home happy.

The next day we went for a little walk, following a trail from a flat meadow that would eventually take us up into some rocks called the Hoodoos. Soon enough the slope had become rather dramatic and we found ourselves inching along a very narrow path about half way up what I would call a cliff. I was thinking about bears (and making sure we were being sufficiently noisy); I was also thinking about the dangerous plunge on our right. But most of all I was thinking about what might happen if a bear perversely decided to be surprised by us on this tiny vertiginous path. That sounded like a very sticky situation indeed. But we persevered and soon the drop beside us became only a very steep slope. I started to relax. And then Laura said, "I can see a bear."

She sounded fairly relaxed and later on I found out there were two reasons for this. Firstly, she really hadn't thought it possible that we would actually stumble across a bear. Secondly, the bear she had seen was not the far-away-adult bear that she initially assumed it to be. I could see that it was in fact a very small baby bear that was really very close indeed, slightly below us down the scrubby slope.

"What about the mother?" I asked. That sounds like an idle question, and I like to think I kept my voice calm, but what I really meant is "Oh shit, it had better not be behind us." At some point during the next one hundredth of a second Laura realised that she had spotted a cub, I saw the
mother's large brown shape begin to emerge from the bushes, and we all turned and walked back the way we came. A few seconds after that I realised that they were the same bears we had seen the day before. And a few seconds after that it occurred to me that the fourth bear might be lurking nearby too. But if he was, he heard us coming, and we didn't fall off the cliff either so, all in all, it was a brilliant walk.

I'll tell you what else is brilliant: the Old Faithful Inn. We had dinner there last night and it is an extraordinary building. It's essentially a log cabin, although it is enormous, palatial almost. But despite the size, because of the wood, it is fundamentally a cozy little nook. Now I had had a pint of beer by this point, but it seemed to me to a wonderful place, friendly and homely, and, as the evening darkened, filled with light and music. Although the giant hearths were swept and empty, it felt like there were cheery fires roaring there anyway. Best of all was the thought of it standing there all by itself in the splendid wilderness, radiating warmth and song into the darkness. I will definitely return.

Today though was all about the leaving. We drove south, swapping Yellowstone for the Grand Tetons National Park. Suddenly there were proper mountains ahead of us, grey and pointy, and raggedy old forests unlike Yellowstone's fresh green growths. I like mountains. I like the way they look, the way weather spins and boils about them. I realised this when we took a trail up into the lower slopes towards an outcrop called Inspiration Point. When we finally clambered up there, the view was of the lake and some distant non-descript hills. Pretty enough, and worth the climb, but I couldn't see the mountains anymore. We got to look at them plenty though as we drove away. Soon enough the sun was setting behind them through the rain, sending astonishing bars of light down through the cloud, haphazardly blazing across alpine meadows that were certainly full of moose, and bears.

We left it all behind and returned to Wyoming, the bright lights of Rock Springs waiting for us two hundred miles south through a darkening desert of silver-green sagebrush.