“BEAR, Tim”! Tim Lowe, who was fishing about 100 feet below me on Brooks Creek, glanced my way and saw the large brown bear just across the creek from me. Since the creek was only 40 feet wide, that made the bear dangerously close. Thankfully, the bear showed no interest in us whatsoever and went about moseying down the bank toward where Tim was fishing. But that sure does get the heart pumping!
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Our adventure began with an invitation from Traci and Tim Lowe to meet them in Wyoming while they were making a cross country trip in their motor home with their three dogs. Traci and Tim have become great friends of ours since they moved to St. Simons several years ago. Tim is a member of the Board of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Traci is a member of the Board of the Humane Society of South Coastal Georgia.
The Lowes had parked their motor home at the Longhorn Ranch in Dubois (pronounced Du-Boys), Wyoming. Dubois has a population of 911 and is a picturesque town at an elevation of 6932 feet some 75 miles east of Jackson Hole. The Longhorn Ranch sits on the bank of the Wind River and has cabins/rooms available for rent for those who are not traveling in their recreational vehicles. Carol and I enjoyed a stay in one of those cabins.
Although we were fearful about potential travel snafus after all the problems with flight delays and cancellations during the several weeks before our trip, that proved not to be an issue at all. Fortunately, Delta was ready when we were and all our flights to and from Jackson Hole were essentially on time. Since the Lowes are smart travelers who tow their pickup behind the motor home, Traci was able to pick us up in the truck without driving the motor home to and from the Jackson Hole airport.i
Our first full day in Dubois was spent at the Brooks Lake Recreation Area (elevation 9200 feet) in the Shoshone National Forest. This is where Tim and I spent our time fly-fishing Brooks Creek and had our bear encounter. We had worked our way some 200 yards downstream when we heard yelling from the campground where Carol and Traci were relaxing. We couldn’t tell what they were yelling, but soon after we heard them the area caretaker stopped on the road above the river to tell us that a bear was heading our way. Even with the warning, glancing up and seeing a 400-pound brown bear just 40 feet across the creek was thrilling. As it turned out, the bear had wandered through the campground past Carol and Traci on its way downstream and that was the commotion we heard.
Brooks Creek is small and so clear that the fish are easily visible. But that also means, we are just as visible to the fish! We caught a few small rainbow and brook trout, but there weren’t enough to make a meal for four people, so we released them all. The next day, we decided to try our luck in the series of Ring Lakes in the Wind River Range. Almost immediately I caught a nice cutthroat trout, but that ended up being our only catch.
After an hour of fishing, we decided the climb the mountains in the range and scope out the petroglyphs carved in the various rock formations. These amazing carvings are thought to be originated by the Tukadeka (or Tukadika) Indians. Tukadeka means “mountain sheepeaters” and is a band of the Shoshone tribe of Idaho and Wyoming. Petroglyphs are found throughout the world and are thought to be up to 20,000 years old. In the Wind River Range, these carvings are thought to be 3,000 years old. There are purportedly 175 petroglyphs in this area. Seeing these petroglyphs brings about interesting conversation about what the carved drawings represent or what they might mean. Is it possible these native Americans were visited by people from outer space? It is easy to consider this possibility when you view these carvings.
Members of the Eastern Shoshone tribe still reside in the area. They are one of the two Native American tribes that share the Wind River Indian Reservation close to Dubois. The other tribe is the Northern Arapaho. The reservation is 3,532 square miles (2.2 million acres) in size. Four casinos occupy the reservation. In the early 1800s, in addition to the Shoshone and Arapaho, several other tribes including the Crow, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, and Lakota were present in the Wind River Basin.
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One of the most amazing features in Dubois is the National Museum of Military Vehicles. We visited the museum on our last day in Dubois. Phenomenal does not do it justice! The museum is comprised of 160,000 square feet of exhibit space and is still growing. Funded and operated by a $100 million endowment, the museum includes over 500 fully restored tanks and vehicles, with more than 90 percent of them operational. I never knew there were so many different types of tanks! I asked the staff at the front desk who designed the museum and was happy to learn one of the principal designers was Gallagher and Associates, the designer of the World War II Home Front Museum on St. Simons. To me, it was obvious Gallagher was involved.
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The Lowes were wonderful hosts. Every night during our visit they prepared outstanding meals including cowboy ribeye steaks, huge pork chops, and our favorite, shrimp and grits. (A shout out to BJ Egeland of St. Simons Seafood for the shrimp and Uncle Don’s Local Market for the Carolina Grits from Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit.) Even though we wish we’d had some fresh-caught fish to add to the meals, the up-close, but not TOO close bear encounter, interesting petroglyphs, and fantastic military museum made our visit to Wyoming a great vacation. Not to mention the weather was especially comfortable with almost no humidity and high temperatures only around 85 and lows around 45 degrees. Definitely easier to… bear… than our recent temperatures here!
