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The next morning at Sibley Lake in the Bighorns of Wyoming, while Mike took a drive to survey the area for the best fishing and biking spots, I undertook to walk all the way around the lake with Koa.
A small fisher’s footpath wound along the edge of Sibley Lake, the footing uncertain and clotted with tree roots, boggy at times as it cut through marshy corners of the lake. The remains of early summer’s glorious flowers were still tucked here and there among foliage reddening with oncoming fall: silver lupine, white yarrow, purple asters, and clover. Even a few bright bluebells still clung to the dry soil.
This lakeside hike was the first time I felt safe enough to explore alone for a good distance in the wild, due to a persistent and crippling fear of bears. I stayed vigilant for signs of bear or moose, since they are common here, their tracks and winding paths evident—but with broad daylight and good visibility I clapped and sang as I went, making sure they’d know we were coming.
Plus, I was a good swimmer and could dive into the lake and swim away. I’d never read of a bear pursuing a human into the water.
Koa loved being my watchdog, bounding over logs and jumping over the creeks that wound through marshy areas to fill the lake. Here and there along the trail, pine trees had been bitten in circular patterns all the way to the core.
At first these incursions seemed to me like the work of a beaver, but there was no evidence of beaver in the lake. Though bears chew trees in early spring, too, these patterns were too even, and focused on one area of the tree.
I concluded that deer, elk or moose must be chewing deep into the meat of the trees to gain nourishment or minerals. Gnawed patches of bark were also frequent, but a few trees had been eaten deep enough into the wood to make them vulnerable to blowing over.
Later in the day, Mike and I went for a drive and located the cabin where we stayed with our very young children so long ago.
The formerly bustling family-style resort was semi-abandoned. The cabin we’d enjoyed was empty and broken-down, revealing its age. But even with that physical evidence before our eyes, was hard to believe that more than thirty years had passed since I last stood in this spot.
Though the children were grown and gone, I didn’t feel any older; and the natural area around us was no different.
A few places measure time in generations, and the Bighorn Mountains is one of them.
By day two in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, Mike had been out fishing and exploring more than I and had already seen a good number of the area’s “megafauna” including moose, elk, mule and white-tailed deer.
He told me about spotting a cow moose with her calf who then got in a fight with another cow moose “it was like Clash of the Titans!” The cow then drove the her competitor out of the area, probably protecting her calf. “They’re so huge it’s hard to believe,” he said. “Bigger than horses.”
Caught up on rest after two long drive days, I was finally ready to get up early in the morning to try to see some of the animals. Mike located a wilderness ATV road we could e-bike on, and we loaded them onto our tow vehicle the night before our little safari.
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