Top Trails: Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Andrew Dean Nystrom
Ask at a ranger station or visitor center about recent bear activity before heading out.
• Do not travel alone or at night, when most bear feeding occurs. Parties of three or more are ideal.
• Stay alert for bear signs. Make noise and stay on marked trails; half of all attacks occur off-trail.
• Avoid carcasses, and do not carry smelly food.
• Never leave your pack unattended on the trail.
• Follow NPS guidelines for proper camping and food-storage techniques, as outlined in free hiking and backcountry camping brochures available at ranger stations and backcountry offices.
• Always carry bear spray, have it accessible at all times, and know how to use it. Reliable brands are Counter Assault and UDAP. You can’t fly with bear spray, so buy it at outdoors stores in gateway towns or at visitor center bookstores. You can also rent bear spray by the day or week at a booth outside Canyon Visitor Center.
• Report any incidents to park rangers.
Even if you follow all of these guidelines, it’s still quite possible that you will encounter a bear, especially if visiting the backcountry. If you see a bear before it sees you, keep out of sight and backtrack the way you came, or detour downwind as far as possible. There are various schools of thought about what to do in case of an encounter. Here’s an executive summary of what the NPS recommends:
• Stay calm. Do not run or make sudden movements—you cannot outrun a bear!
• Back away slowly. Do not drop your pack.
• Talk quietly to the bear, do not shout. Avoid looking directly at the bear.
• Only climb a tree if it’s nearby and you can climb at least 15–20 feet.
If you are charged, the NPS recommends standing still (easier said than done!) since most charges are bluff charges. If the bear makes physical contact, drop to the ground, face down with your hands behind your neck. In the case of a nighttime attack on a tent (these are extremely rare), you should fight back aggressively and use pepper spray.
Coyote populations have halved since wolves were reintroduced in 1995.
In both Yellowstone and Grand Teton, black bears have become quite pesky in seeking food from garbage cans, dumpsters, and campgrounds. However, the majority of bears you might see in the backcountry remain timid and are wary of humans. See the Bear Safety Guidelines for advice on avoiding or managing encounters with bears and other wildlife.
In 1995, 31 Canadian gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, marking the beginning of an unprecedented effort to restore them to their historical range in the Northern Rockies. Wolves now live throughout Yellowstone and increasingly around the fringes of Grand Teton. In the initial phase of the reintroduction, wolf numbers grew rapidly to around 170, but numbers have since leveled off to around 100 inside Yellowstone, in 10 shifting packs. It is estimated that there are 500 of the primo predators in 50 packs in Greater Yellowstone, with 1,700 individuals in 282 packs (including 95 breeding pairs) in the whole of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.
Since 2008, battles have raged in the courts over plans to remove the gray wolf’s endangered-species status. Since 2011, control of wolf numbers has shifted to state authorities in Montana and Idaho, where several hundred wolves a year are now killed by hunters. Wolves once again enjoy federal protection in Wyoming, but several of Yellowstone National Park’s most iconic wolves were killed outside the park when the species was temporarily delisted in Wyoming between 2012 and 2014.
Outside of sunny winter days, the best times to spot wolves are at dawn and dusk. The most reliable method of finding them? Scan roadside turn-outs for an array of high-powered binoculars and spotting scopes, telephoto lenses mounted on camouflage tripods, and CB radio antennas on the roofs of expedition-equipped four-wheel-drive vehicles. Then stop and ask if you can take a look; devoted wolf-watchers are usually quite happy to share their knowledge and passion with passersby.
The highly adaptable, omnivorous coyote is often seen loping across meadows, fields, and other open grasslands. The coyote population has decreased by as much as 50% in Yellowstone since wolf reintroduction, which has been shown conclusively to have relegated coyotes to a scavenger role. However, the nighttime chorus of yelps (sometimes mistaken for wolf howls) still reverberates through backcountry campsites.
Stay clear of bull bison like this fellow in Pelican Valley (Trail 23)
Estimates of the numbers of the seven species of native ungulates vary as widely as the large animals’ migratory range. Counts of Yellowstone’s bugling Rocky Mountain elk (also known as wapiti) vary seasonally from 10,000 to 20,000 in summer to 5,000 in winter, in seven distinct herds. Over 100,000 elk inhabit Greater Yellowstone. In summer, you can hardly toss a bison chip without hitting a member of the largest elk herd in North America: look around Gibbon Meadows or the Lamar Valley. During the autumn rut (mating season), elk take over the lawns around Mammoth Hot Springs and flock to meadows around Norris Geyser Basin. In Jackson Hole, Timbered Island becomes a no-go zone during the rut. In winter, they migrate south to the National Elk Refuge, or north and east to Gardiner and West Yellowstone, where hunters await just beyond the park boundaries.
Yellowstone’s population of persistent bison (often used interchangeably with buffalo), the largest land animal in North America, is estimated at between 2,300 and 5,000. Watch year-round for what remains of the United States’ largest free-roaming herd in the Hayden and Lamar Valleys, in summer in open meadows and grasslands, and in winter in thermal areas and along the Madison River. In Grand Teton, smaller herds roam the sagelands around Mormon Row. In 2016, President Obama signed legislation designating the bison as the national mammal of the United States.
Common, floppy-eared mule deer prefer open forests and grassy meadows, where they munch on leaves, shrubs, and sedges. Watch for them browsing around dusk near forest edges. The furtive, less common white-tailed deer is only occasionally spotted near waterways in Yellowstone’s Northern Range.
A declining population of moody, drooling moose lurk in willow thickets in riparian zones, mainly in marshy meadows, near lakeshores, and along rivers. In Yellowstone, they are most frequently seen browsing in the Bechler region and in the Soda Butte Creek, Pelican Creek, Lewis River, and Gallatin River drainages. They are more common in Grand Teton, wherever willows colonize marshes and ponds. Appearances are deceptive: they are superb swimmers and can—and will—charge at up to 35 miles per hour, so give them wide berth.
A population of 350–400 fleet-footed pronghorn are more closely related to goats and are not true antelopes. They are found in summer in sage flats and grasslands in the Lamar Valley, in Jackson Hole, and near Yellowstone’s North Entrance. Their numbers declined by 50% in Yellowstone between 1991 and 1995; for context, the pre-European American settlement population is estimated at 35 million. The population has since stabilized, but large-scale energy developments outside Grand Teton jeopardize their long-distance winter migration routes around the park.
Numbering up to 300, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep are often spotted scampering along cliffs and roaming Yellowstone’s alpine meadows. In summer, they are most easily found on the slopes of Mount Washburn, and yearround in Gardner Canyon between Mammoth and the North Entrance. Also watch for their silhouettes on cliff tops along the Yellowstone River, and above Soda Butte in the Lamar Valley.
Invasive, nonnative mountain goats are increasingly common and thought to be colonizing rocky slopes in Yellowstone’s northern reaches.
The population of the seldom-seen American cougar (also known as the mountain lion) is estimated at 26–42, making it Yellowstone’s most common cat species. Primarily nocturnal, cougars have been called “the ghosts of the Rockies.”
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