We are vacationing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and spending much of our time hiking in the Grand Teton National Park.  The scenery is absolutely stunning.

We arrived here about two weeks after a tragic accident where a man was killed by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone Park, which is about an hour from here.  There are grizzly bears all over this area and, apparently, this time of year they come down from higher ground for food (often elk, bison and deer babies).  We have been very aware of the risk.  We are a group of five and the first in our group has bear spray (which I believe is basically pepper spray) strapped to him; in addition, myself and one other have bear whistles (thanks Mike!).

Yesterday, we went to hike Hanging Canyon.  I believe that I referred to it mistakenly as Death Canyon in my post earlier this week.  (I think that was a freudian slip, but more on that later.)  To start our hike, we had to take a ferry across Jenny Lake.  While waiting for the ferry, I noticed a board which had recent local animal sightings, which included a bear sow with cubs.

There was also an article about the incident in Yellowstone.  A man and a woman were hiking and spotted the bear and three cubs, about 100 yards in front of them.   They froze and then started walking backwards, which is what you are supposed to do.  Apparently, though, a mama bear neutralizes the area of all risks for her cubs and came after the people.  She lifted the woman off of the ground by her pack.  I thought a lot about that yesterday.  Can you imagine being picked up off the ground by a bear?  The woman went limp and the bear dropped her and lost interest when the woman played dead.  The man was killed – and the article did not give much information on him other than that he was killed quickly and did not suffer, and there were bites and claw marks on him.

What a dilemma and absolute tragedy.  The people basically reacted as you are supposed to do and did not intentionally (or stupidly) threaten the bear or her cubs.  Still, the mother was following her instincts to protect her babies.  It is hard to find fault in the situation.  The park officials chose not to kill the bear.

Back to our hike to Death Hanging Canyon.  Most people who cross Jenny Lake on the ferry are taking an easy and short hike to Inspiration Point.  The trail to Hanging Canyon is six miles, but as the guidebooks say – don’t let the length fool you; the challenge is in the terrain.  The trail is not well-marked and there were several places where downed trees blocked the trails and we had to go off course.  The entire way, I was thinking about grizzlies.  The problem is that you can not take your eyes off your feet – you are climbing up big rocks, loose rocks and over gushing streams and downed trees.  If you take your attention off your footing for one second, you could be in trouble.  And we were all in trouble at least once.

Three hours into the climb up – and it was very much a climb UP – we were within about 30 minutes from the top.  At that point, we ran into this:

Snow.  And we had to cross it to continue to the top.  The problem is that if you slipped on this, you would slide down the mountain – who knows how far.  Here is a view down the snow patch:

The first in our group went across this passage.  My husband went across.  My dear friend who was with us has a fear of heights and paused.  I started across – I thought, “I grew up in snow, no problem”.  I got half way across and a strong wind came up and I have to admit – it was scary.  I made it the rest of the way across.  We looked up at the remainder of the trail and saw that there was significant more snow on the way to the top and we decided to turn around (which meant going back across the snow).

The way down was truly tortuous.  While the climb up was aerobically challenging and also tiring on the legs, we had to be even more diligent about our footing coming down.   We did take short breaks to enjoy the scenery:

After five and a half hours, we made it down.  We saw no bears – no wildlife other than some squirrels and a peregrine falcon chasing a hawk (which was really cool).  It was an intense physical challenge, which I love, but I don’t think I would do this one again – a little too grueling and we all have a few battle wounds to prove it.  In fact, on the way back to get on the ferry, a lady walked by the five of us, walking in single file, and as she passed each one of us, she looked at our wounds and said “ouch”; when she got to my husband, the last one of our group, I could hear her say “oh, please tell me we are not going where you all have been.”