Monday, September 3, 2012

Labor Day weekend trip report

  

This Labor Day weekend, we didn't hit the backcountry. With two little kids (one in diapers still), we just don't do the backcountry on family trips. It would have been perfect weather for fishing on the Lamar River or the Bechler River.

In fact, we ended up only about 10-20 miles from the Bechler River. We stayed at the Warm River campground, a beautiful family spot about 14 miles east of Ashton, Idaho. I consider this the perfect place for a family with young kids to camp because it's close to a river that is manageable with little kids, it's close to home for us to easily bail out if we want to, and it's just alot of fun in general.

On Sunday, we took a day trip to West Yellowstone to see the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. What an awesome thing to do with kids! We saw bears and wolves up close, along with bald eagles, golden eagles, and several other raptors.

The bear show was the high of the day! The handlers put the bear "away" while they hid the food. Then the bears came out and showed the crowd how bears find food. This was incredibly educational for me as much as it was for the kids. I read about how the bears can do alot of things, like moving huge rocks and tree trunks to climbing the trees to get to food. It's one thing to read about it and trust that you're being told the truth....to see it makes it much more real. See below for proof that you need to make sure your food bag is centered between the bear poles in the backcountry.






And here's a great view of what is generally wrong with campsites. This was an exhibit that was setup in the discovery center area and really hits home.








The wolves were cool to see, but they weren't up to much activity.


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