Shit is awe inspiring. If you havent, it’s something you must do before you leave this earth.
If I saw a bear anywhere outside of a zoo setting, I would promptly shit my pants and die
I saw a hedgehog last night and that was enough excitement for me
CW: Grizzly drowning an elk in Yellowstone
I've yet to go into Wyoming further than Medicine Bow National Forest which is beautiful. Both that and Montana seem like the real Rockies, whereas in Colorado you only have to coexist with black bears/mountain lions/moose/a few wolves as threats. I really want to do some roadtrips to both states and camp but not until I have a gun chambered in 10mm. Ever since staring down a few bull moose and seeing this video of a grizzly family stalking a hiker and false-charging to trip him, I haven't felt comfortable being in those habitats unarmed. They're meat tanks.
It's a tradeoff between for-sure penetration and better capacity/control for me. I have a 12g if I want to put a large hole in something but I don't want to walk around with such a large gun. Punchier handgun rounds are mostly revolvers and kick like a motherfucker compared to the 10mm I've shot. That was only marginally heftier than my 9mm and I can accurately fire the 17 rounds in that as fast as I can pull the trigger while reloading it super quickly. If I'm shooting while panicked the more shots the better as I'm otherwise getting off three revolver shots at a moving target.
A buddy of mine has a cabin at 100 mile house (rural BC). Seeing a bunch of rad wildlife there is one of my favorite parts of going there. Deer,black&brown bears, geese, owls, nature is just cool to watch. Sitting in a lawn chair, high off my ass, then a herd of grazing cattle wonder through the property. Great time
I lived in bear country as a kid, I've seen plenty of brown and black bears. They're very cute and big brown bears munching lazily on salmon can be awe inspiring and funny, but they're also pretty scary lol.
Wolves are a treat to catch a glimpse of too.
Yellowstone is on my bucket list. But low-key bears kinda scare the shit out of me.
I think I was scarred by Bill Bryson's walk in the woods... He basically goes through all of the conflicting advice about bears...wearing bells, pepper spray, etc. Basically bears will decide to do whatever they want to do and if they decide to eat you, you're fucked
Edit: Im dumb I've been to yellowstone a bunch and it is awesome. Yosemite is my bucketlist
A bear is an individual :3 best way to avoid bear attacks is to respect bears and uphold boundaries. The same way one avoids shark encounters.
By remembering bear and shark live in the wild, that the wild is not empty. :3
No kidding. I'm going backpacking for the first time in a while and I'm super pumped. No grizzlies here though!
yellowstone was cool but felt more like a "drive thru" park compared to yosemite, which is a "boots on the ground" park. been face to face with a bunch of bears, never a griz though. black bears don't want anything to do with you
Are you trying to fight me?
:gun-shapiro:
Yellowstone is especially great in the winter when you can cross country ski all over, follow animal tracks, and check out carcasses.
I’ve seen black bears (one with cubs!) in the Yosemite wilderness before, but never a grizzly. They’re such beautiful animals
Bears are so sick. Watching grizzlies fish for salmon is one of the absolute best memories I have from any job I've done
I like the ecological interaction between bears fishing for salmon and the PNW rainforests. Leaving the carcasses scattered beyond the rivers fertilises the forest floor. Damming the spawning rivers depletes the salmon stocks which starve the bears which turn the forests into tinder boxes. Real bees and architects shit.
The salmon run in the PNW might be the main link between nitrogen in the oceans and nitrogen in the temperate rain forests.
salmon counting! Basically monitoring the number/sex ratio/age composition of returning salmon in small spawning tributaries
Yes, luckily they mostly want to be left alone so its not like they're going to fuck with you.
I've gone to yellowstone but I never saw any grizzlies. A lot of bison (?) though. The hot pools and geysers were really cool, but imo I enjoyed the grand canyon a lot more.
Goddammit I wish I lived somewhere with a lot of wilderness. I might move to Alaska when I'm older just for that reason
Wrong side of the continent. I've seen black bears and moose (incredible creatures), but no grizzlies.
