De Anza College Outdoor Club Grand Teton trip 2010

A hill above a plain with multiple creeks has always been an Outdoor Club favorite for wildlife watching then sunset watching while having dinner.

As seen from the main park highway, Bison grazing and Pronghorn running.

This photo shows the proper way to watch a grizzly bear if you are allowed to get at all close by the park rangers. The wildlife brigade volunteers (light green vests) were happy that the humans were behaving themselves and told everyone that if the sow up on the hill decided to leave the bushes she was eating serviceberries from and cross the road, that everyone should quickly get into a car ... any car. (The bear probably weighed 350 pounds and was six feet long.) She ate the berries by putting her mouth around the bottom end of a branch, closing it, and running her teeth along the branch, stripping off berries and leaves.

below: sunrise at Schwabacher landing, where we found fairly fresh bobcat tracks in the mud of the trail we were hiking on (beaver lodge on the left at the back edge of the pond), mid-day in Cascade Canyon with glaciers at the top of the cliff and cascades on the way down and on yet another day, sunset at Schwabacher landing while we had a picnic dinner.

On the portage to the Leigh Lake wilderness overnight there are stairs down to the lake built for people to move boats on. You need to control the slide of the heavily laden craft (notice the firewood we collected along the portage trail in anticipation of none in the vicinity of the campsite):

Overnight we heard elk bugle, moose grunting; did not use up all the firewood obtained for the campfire and stargazed the Milky Way.

We made breakfast on the shore of the lake instead of back in the forest at the campsite. Heard more elk bugle, and saw/heard a loon couple but did not get photos.

A Pine Marten dug and dug near the campsite then came up with breakfast in his mouth.

On the paddle back from the wilderness overnight we fought strong wind and the lake had small whitecaps.

Wheeled trailers make moving the fully loaded kayaks from lake to lake easy.

There is a bridge on the Snake River at Moose, Wyoming that looks down on prime moose habitat with willows they especially like to eat.

With a telephoto or your own binoculars you can watch him up close:

A full grown bull moose is seven feet tall at his shoulders. "Gi-normous" according to one trip member.

On our early morning paddle in drizzle from the outlet of Jackson Dam to the Pacific Creek Landing we had only a few rapids worth a wheeeee. We watched a bald eagle and osprey compete for food.

On another day we saw, but did not photograph, a mink in its very own mink coat.

It didn't snow on us but we did wake up to snow covered mountains near the end of the trip.

Old Bill's Fun Run in Jackson is a fundraiser for dozens of charities and projects, including the Bridger-Teton Red Cross chapter, fire, EMS, Grand Teton Park, search and rescue. In 2010 a total of $7,304,595 was raised. We volunteered at the race to give a little back to the community the Outdoor Club has visited for ten years.

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second and third photos below by Mark Nevill:

Grand Tetons is the main page about the De Anza Outdoor Club trips to Grand Teton National Park.

Grand Tetons trip pages index has brief descriptions of most of the pages about this trip.