The Day We Saw the Grizzly Bears

So the next morning we headed over to the gondola as soon as it opened so we would be sure to catch a ride before leaving town.  The good news was that the gondola was up and running, the bad news was that the weather was super unpleasant.

We were still excited to check it out and really hoped we’d see a bear. But with the yucky weather we didn’t think our chances were very good.

As we were sitting in the Gondola Prep room (aka “The how to not get eaten by a bear training”), one of the guides came in to tell us that there was a bear on the hill.   We came running out and sure enough, there she was.  (She is the little brown speck above the gondola pictured below). The cool part, is that even though we could see her from the training pavilion (barely), we had a front row seat from our gondola.

The girls were so excited (and a little nervous) to see the bear.  We rode up the hill and just as we passed the trees and there she was about 40 yards away. 

She even posed for her picture.  We all got so excited – I took about 600 pictures just to make sure I got a good one, while Kyle managed to video the girls’ reaction to seeing the bear and making sure they could see out the window.  The video is hilarious.  Chaos and more chaos, but it was so much fun we didn’t even notice the bad weather.

We did however, notice the weather when we got out at the top of the lift.  It was wet.  But there was a cool little visitors center and it was indoors, so we were set.  They had lots of cool stuff and a great guide that let us check out a horn from a big horn sheep.  So cool.  We also got to ride a little shuttle bus instead of walking to the visitors center in the rain.  Win-Win.

We rode back down the mountain but our Grizzly bear was gone.  So we went into the lodge to have lunch.  As we were sitting there eating, one of the staff members came into the dinning area to make sure we all had a chance to see the mama bear and her cub that were now on the mountain.

Holy cow, it just kept getting better.  They were up the hill, but close enough that is was still super cool.  It was such a great experience (especially because at no time were we in danger of being eaten) and made for a really fun family adventure.