We gave the foodbank a bit of assistance today (5-24-10), stocking some shelves and such; they lent us a bit of assistance as well we a few much-needed supplies. Thank you! The senior center needed no assistance from us however, we were summarily dismissed when we tried to help out. Oh well, it is obviously a VERY well funded center. We also met an extremely rude manager at the Virginian RV Park in Jackson, Wyoming. Don’t bother going here, the management wasn’t slightly rude, they were outrightly and distinctly rude on multiple occasions, even though our response each time was nothing but courteous back. The hail and snow was off and on today, even down in Jackson, although it’s lesser this evening. Again, the incredible wildlife around Teton National Park is phenomenal.  Bison and elk and pronghorn antelope herds, a moose, a northern harrier, several bald eagles, hawks, cranes, kestrels, ravens, songbirds galore, none seem to mind the cold spell.

Since we took the time to drive up to the next two campgrounds today (5-25-10) to clean out the firepits and pick up garbage, we decided to take a hike in a new place. There’s a small creek running from the north, about 2.5 miles east of ‘home’. We parked and walked, sometimes on the trail but mostly wandering near the gorgeous little creek, following elk and deer trails. We eventually crossed the creek and found a shoe and torn jacket, then another shoe 5 meters or so away. The shoes had slight chew marks. Creepy. Paul marked on the GPS, Indigo will contact the forest service to see if someone went missing. We searched the area and found nothing else, although across the river and a bit upstream we found a large boneyard. We hiked upstream and eventually crossed and walked back to the boneyard to see what it was. It looks like a very large carnivore had dragged it’s kills to this spot on more than a few occasions. What is doing it? The first thought is grizzly bear. The size of the animals killed, including a full grown elk, seems to point to grizzly. The bones are scattered all around, which could be bear or wolf. Then we also found a large cat scat there as well. There where no antlers about, perhaps humans have scattered the bones. Hard to tell, but a very interesting place, with bones both fresh and old. We have found an incredible number of animal bones when we hike here, but, we have seen an incredible number of animals as well, so I guess it goes hand in hand. We saw two small herds of bighorn sheep, a female herd and a male herd. It was very, very nice to have a sunny and warm day today after all the cold and snow. There is still fresh snow in the red hills, it only makes them look more gorgeous.

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