On Sunday we took our first major critter  trek through the park.   We saw LOTS of critters—but I thought I’d share with you the hidden reality of the trip. (the highlights are, of course, posted to flickr…these, for obvious reasons, didn’t make the cut)

Bears…well, yes, we saw a black bear–he looked like this for most of the 60 minutes we watched him….he occasionally rolled over and showed us that he, most assuredly, was a male black bear.

And then, of course, we saw a cinnamon black bear…Tim dropped me at the side of the road, as we typically do, but clearly we need more practice…my knitting tangled around me foot and I had about 50 feet of Cascade Heritage Silk running down the road. The Australians thought it was hysterical.

And then, of course, there was the grizz w/ 2 cubs….well, we’re fairly sure that’s what they are.  Sometimes these are great moments though.  You put your camera down, grab the binoculars and just watch the cubs roll, bounce, spring, pounce–do anything except walk.  We’re heading out again tomorrow–maybe they’ll be a little closer to the road–one thing’s for sure–we weren’t violating any park rules about getting to close to the animals. (Click on picture for larger view)

The big  horn sheep were no challenge at all….they were right on the road–the hardest part is getting them to show you something other than their butt….and getting the people out of the camera view.

We always eagerly await the first of the baby bison (red dogs) to be born.  We’d heard of a few–can you find them in this pic–it’s about as close as we came…but “we saw red dogs!” was the report when we got home.

There’s been bits and pieces of snow almost every day this week.  Usually it’s a dusting, just like powdered sugar on a brownie–that melts away into a gorgeous day…and we’ll see what the next week brings.  The Snow Lodge (Tim’s job) opens tomorrow and I finally start my training on Sunday.