Oh What a Night, Or Call It Twilight But a Great Time to Watch Wildlife

Living near the equator we rarely get to experience the late-summer night twilight and sunsets, but in the Tetons the sun doesn’t set till around 8:30 PM and the lingering light and color can last 30-45 minutes longer. I love it cause you can squeeze so much more into your day. With that in mind, and the choice between sunrise or sunset for the ideal time to catch wildlife in their natural habitat I’ll choose sunset all day long (so to speak). So off we went to a historic establishment within the Grand Teton National Park called Dornans.

Dornans is a 5th generation family-owned business within the park boundaries in the heart of the Teton Valley and on the Snake River. Besides offering lodging, fly-fishing, mountaineering, kayaking and float trips, they have a restaurant right on the river with a roof-top lanai perfect to watch animals that may stroll by along the water’s edge as the day dims into night.

Almost as soon as we sat down we spotted a bull moose walking along the river eating his dinner of young willow leaves and shoots growing all along the river bank. As you can imagine there were lots of eyes & camera lenses focused on this guy, but he really seemed oblivious to it all. We were so close to it you could see the velvet on his antlers! Probably too close for safety.

As you can see -this guy is right beside the car!

This same evening we came a herd of bison twice, once on the way into the park and again on the way out. These big beautiful beasts were right on the road! No fence between us and them! We saw a Silver Fox, again right along the road, then way off in the distance we spotted a big old elk with a rack of antlers big enough to give you an idea of his overall size. Like I said -“Oh what a night!”

Aloha, Mikie ~just a blogger (fightin’ like a girl)

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