Who ate the last Krispy Kreme?

I know that my posts are getting fewer and further between, so today I was formulating in my mind what aspect of SNP life I could share. As I gathered my thoughts, the end of the day event trumped them all... the bear chase.

In the park there are a lot of bears (comparatively speaking) but there are people hanging out all over their home. This is cool for the people but not always cool for the bears. If I were a bear and I spent all day flipping over rocks to eat bugs, heck, I would not turn down sticky rolls out of someone's backpack. duh. There has been a bear with 4 cubs hanging around a populated area and getting herself into trouble. Rolf, my supervisor, is one of two go-to guys for 'nuisance bears' and when the bear was spotted, he was called into action. The protocol for this is to dart or trap the bear and relocate her. This bear was relocated last year and made her way 50 miles through the park to end up at the same campground (like I said, bugs or sticky rolls... she's not dumb!)

The situation was complicated greatly by the four cubs who were pretty small- 15 lbs or so. If the sow was darted, the cubs would tree and be too difficult to get down, and too small to dart. So we tromped through the woods and Rolf darted her and I had a dog-catcher-like snag pole in case a cub was bold enough to come around. Once the mama was out cold we approached her to take records and pull the dart out of her. Basically, my job for this part is to stand and gawk, like probably all of the interns do, but it was amazing to see a 'wild' bear that close. My actual job for this is really to pepper spray the bear in case she wakes up and decides that she doesn't like the biologist that is sticking the thermometer up her butt.

The end to this story is that we let the bear wake up, get her cubs and walk away because there is nothing else we could do. Hopefully, the experience will deter her a little but no one will be surprised if we are called out there next week when the bear finds out that she likes sprinkles on her Krispy Kremes.

I will have more SNP pics to share at a later date, but for now, here are some from Andy's recent backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon that a fellow firefighter organized... self-proclaimed as the best trip he has ever taken. On the way home from the airport, he told me all of his stories and I just cracked up the whole way! Good stuff! It sounded pretty extreme, even for me... 118 degrees to 27 deg., scorpions, trails with one wrong step and you are over the edge and a 4000 vertical ft. climb in one shot. Hiking in SNP will be too tame for Andy now!
Pretty sweet waterfall picture, huh? I think I have some competition for my photography skills!