When you head out to the Greater Yellowstone Area that contains Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and the surrounding national forests and other wilderness areas, one of the top desires may be to see real live grizzly bears in the wild. Over the years I’ve spent months in Yellowstone and seen numerous grizzly bears. Prior to 2019, I’d never seen the grizzly bear cubs working on their junior ranger badges.
Back in 2019 before the pandemic rolled in and drove hoards of people to the national parks and Yellowstone in particular, it was easy to drive up to Yellowstone, grab a campsite and settle in for a couple weeks at the Mammoth campground in the northern section of the park. There were no reservations needed and no need to plan a trip months in advance. In late April I headed up to the Mammoth campground and settled in. Most time was spent in the Lamar Valley area of the park photographing bison, pronghorn, black bears and the occasional distant grizzly bear.
One day I heard through fellow Yellowstone campers and photographers that a grizzly bear with three cubs was hanging around near Obsidian Creek and the Roaring Mountain area of Yellowstone between Mammoth Hot Springs and the Norris area of the park. In my experience it wasn’t often that grizzly bears would return to the same spot day after day but I kept on hearing about the “Obsidian Sow” with her cubs day after day. After hearing stories of this grizzly sow with 3 COYS (Cubs Of The Year) for a few days I decided to head up and see if this sow and her cubs would show up once again.
As is often the case when hoping to photograph wildlife, I sat around for hours hoping and waiting this particular sow and her cubs to show up once again. To my surprise, she did show up again with her three cubs in the same area. After grazing and playing with her cubs for an hour or so she decided it was time to depart and headed into the woods. When she wandered off into the woods, I drove up to the Roaring Mountain parking area hoping to see mom and her three cubs wander by once again.
After waiting around for a while, the Obsidian sow along with her three little ones did pop out of the woods and wander over to Roaring Mountain. As they approached the thermal feature, the cubs grazed, wrestled with each other and then discovered the signage around the edge of Roaring Mountain. Mom led them through the crowds that began to fill up the parking lot and stop along the park roads.
As the grizzly family wandered up to the edge of the Roaring Mountain thermal area, the cubs discovered the “Keep Off” sign. I along with a few others in or next to their cars couldn’t believe our luck when the cubs started to play on and around the “Keep Off” sign and soon posed with it. It was as if they were taking the a Junior Ranger class and going through the thermal feature safety portion of the class. As is often the case with some awesome wildlife and landscape photos, this scene wasn’t planned at all and just happened to unfold while we were there.
This scene makes a great photo print anywhere up to 40×60 inches as well as a blanket, shower curtain, puzzle or tote bag for anyone who loves cute grizzly bear cubs.
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