In my last post, I talked about our day at Arches National Park and Moab, UT. The next day, we got up and drove up to Salt Lake City, which is about a 4-hour drive.
We were originally going to go camping, but we ended up spending the day going to REI for equipment we needed, going grocery shop, and finding a car wash. At some point in that process, we decided that sleeping on a bed sounded really good, especially after meeting Bobby at the last campsite.
We also had one main mission in Salt Lake City: make the car bear-proof. By that, I mean make the car not attract bears any more than it already would. Going north of Salt Lake City meant going into Bear Country. While in the Utah desert, our main fears were spiders with painful or deadly bites, heat stroke, and dehydration. Now after Salt Lake City, we pivoted to concerns of being mauled by a bear – or worse, having a bear break into our car and getting fined $10,000.
We took everything out of the car and dumped it in the motel room. We found a car wash where we could power wash the car, vacuum the interiors, etc. We were particularly worried about crumbs and stuff. We then spent the whole evening washing all our clothes in the shower (and unsuccessfully air drying them) and re-organizing all our stuff.
The next morning, we got up with the sun and started the 5-hour drive to Grand Teton. We needed to get to the campsite soon after they started accepting new campers for the day. The Grand Teton campsites don’t take reservations, so it’s first-come-first-serve. We aimed to get there around 1pm to make sure we would get a campsite.
As we got closer to the park, it started to feel more mountain-y.
Bison!
Then we got our first views of the mountains! They were already stunning.
Like I said, we headed straight for the campsite. We talked to the ranger for a while about bear safety and then set up camp. I set up a clothes line so the clothes we washed the night before could finally dry. It was really nice resting at the campsite in the middle of the day. For the first time in almost two weeks, we were out in the middle of the day and it wasn’t too hot.
After resting and setting up camp, we headed to the park. We wanted to find a scenic place to eat some sandwiches we made at the campsite for a late lunch. We then got the map and everything from the visitors center and made a plan for the day. We decided to go to Jenny Lake.
This was such a shocking difference to the landscapes we had been surrounded by for so long. Unsurprisingly, we found out that the water was really cold!
We then headed further north into the park, along the mountain range.
We were mainly trying to get to Oxbow Bend by the late afternoon. We went there because it’s apparently a good place to see birds of prey, which we really wanted to see.
We found a nice spot down near the river and I set up a tripod for my camera and we decided to stay there for a while and wait to see if any birds came along.
Then, we spotted a small black bear come out of the brush across the river and jump into the water, swim across, and climb back into the brush (on our side of the river!). We definitely didn’t expect to see a bear. It sort of made our bear fear more real, even though we were lucky to see one from such a safe distance. Nevertheless, we packed up and got it the car shortly after that, because the bear wasn’t that far away from us.
Then we stopped at Cunningham Cabin. We didn’t actually spend much time looking at the cabin, but we got a really great view of the mountains at golden hour and this cool traditional fence.
Even after the sun went behind the mountains, we wanted to see the old cabins from the Mormon settlers. We decided to come back the next morning and see it properly.
Then we headed back to the campsite in the dark and went to sleep pretty soon after, because we were exhausted and the next day we were going to Yellowstone.
