Copyright 2010

Molly and Hugh said to go to Phelps Lake. My family and I were visiting my cousin and her husband, residents of nearby Victor, Idaho, and they thought it the perfect day hike - one of the most beautiful in all of Grand Teton National Park. So off we went in the first week of June - just shy of the start of the season.

Rambling out of the car, my wife and three kids in tow, we had gone no more than 30 yards, searching for the trail head. “Oh my gosh a Grizzly cub!“ exclaimed my 14 year old son Sam. Sam is a skilled wildlife spotter and is rarely wrong. I could hardly believe it, but there it was - not 40 yards away. We had just studied the differences between Black Bears and Grizzlies, but there it was, with its rounded ears, humped back and angled face, playfully turning over logs looking for goodies. Mama Bear was no where to be seen and immediately my hair jumped off the back of my neck. She could easily be behind us for all I knew. Slowly we backed our way back to the car and sat and watched for a while. Mama never showed herself. After a time, we left, of course, and continued up to the Taggart Lake trail head instead.

De ja vu all over again. We rambled from the car, went no more than 50 feet, when Sam exclaimed again: “Dad - a Grizzly!“ Sure enough , 200 hundred yards away, rambling down the meadow was a full grown Grizzly - just making his way, unaware of our presence. This time, with no danger, we watched. This was an experience I had waited for all my life and my cousin Molly later said that in 28 years of living there she had only seen one grizzly, at a distance with a spotting scope. We continued the hike, and as we descended back to the car, near where the grizzly was spotted, we noticed a fresh deer carcass just 50 yards off the trail. As you can imagine, the whole experience had a bit of a chilling effect on the kid’s hiking enthusiasm the rest of the trip.

If you love America’s wildlife, then you’ve got to love the grizzly. Ingrained in our collective consciousness is this most formidable of beasts - probably best described by the Corp of Discovery: “it was the most tremendious looking animal, and extremely hard to kill notwithstanding he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts he swam more than half the distance across the river….and made the most tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot.”

Of course, I needed to attempt a portrayal of the undisputed king of the food chain.

This painting is not one of my wife’s favorites - I believe because of the effusion of blood. But to me the blood is necessary - visceral. The grizzly epitomizes “the wild.” Life for him is a continual battle, evidenced by the open wounds on his shoulder, taken presumably to secure possession of his catch, yet with an insecure and tentative glance back to remind us that, even for him, an adversary is never far away. Life in the wild can be a nasty business and only for those with the heart and tenacity of the bear.