Glorious Day of Bear Watching

Leslie Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Glorious day of bear watching.

The sun was out (along with the mosquitoes) and we started out for the falls. When we got to the footbridge the ranger told us that if we moved very quickly we could cross but that a bear was headed down river and that the bridge would soon be closed. As soon as we got to the other side the ranger there told us that we had to come up on the platform immediately. There was a sow and two cubs very close to the bridge. Although we never got to the falls before lunch, several sows and cubs kept us entertained for hours. We stood on the platform watching the cubs play, and sleep, and wait for mom to go fishing. You’ll notice that one of the cubs has an injury above her eye. The range told us that they do not know how that occurred and that for awhile they were afraid she would lose the eye. The eye now appears to be open so they are hopeful that the cub will retain her vision. The pictures are great. Enjoy!

Mosquitos are fierce!
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Sleeping with mom
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Injured Eye
http://CarpediemAdventures.smugmug.com/photos/331503087_R59Cn-M.jpg

See my teeth
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Two cubs
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Eyeing some grass
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Nose with mom
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After several hours we were able to cross the bridge back to camp. (A number of people who were flying out at noon were trapped with us on the platform; the staff had to shuttle them acoss the river by canoe for them to catch their float plane back to the airport.)

Later in the afternoon we finally made it to the falls. The fish were jumping and the bear were still fishing. I waited hours for the bear on top of the falls to catch a fish attempting to jump over the falls.

From the top of the falls
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Other bears were having a dispute over fishing grounds.
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The bear on the right gave up.
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Since it wasn’t raining the mosquitos were extremely thick. We both wore our headnets almost all day. After awhile you get used to looking through the netting. We had bought the nice headnets at REI in Boulder. Early in the day some people would look at us as if we were dredded weirdly. Later in the afternoon those same people had purchased the cheaply made headnets at the camp store. I discovered later that even though I had on long nylon pants with elastic bands around the cuffs, the mosquitoes had bitten my knees through the pants! Those are fierce bugs!

We got trapped at the platform for over an hour on our way back to camp. There was another family of sow and two cubs playing around the foot bridge. These cubs were really active and had a good time playing while mom was fishing.

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Waiting for mom
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Mom is fishing. All is okay.
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