16 Smarter than the average bear

August 03, 2025

Island Park to Dubois

I think that the first thing to be made clear is that Dubois is pronounced by locals as ‘Due Boys’. The town was named by the federal government after an 1890s senator from Idaho, despite settlers protests.

Dubois (deh-bwah) the senator was of French Canadian descent and ‘Due Boys’ really got up his nose. So the avenging locals, like a dry bogey, made the insult stick.

Dubois’ Laundromat and Jackalope

So, I’m sitting here in the town’s laundromat like Nick Kamen in a Levi’s commercial. Except I’m bald, middle aged and any muscle I had in my body has been eaten away or sent to my weary legs. As the drum turns and Special Agent Sally looks over emails, I think about the past week.

Leaving Island Park

We were stuck in the vortex. It was just impossible to leave. Any excuse to sit in a shady spot, buy a final Coke, send one more WhatsApp, tie that shoelace again….

The zero had been wonderful but our stomachs ached after force feeding ourselves like foie gras for the past day and a half.

As we paced along a long 10 mile stretch of road that turned from baked tarmac to dusty rubble, the heat added to our discomfort. There must have been a quarry nearby too. Passing trucks would deposit claylike dust on our freshly cleaned clothes and into my still parched throat. We were both quite despondent as we trudged out of Idaho and into Wyoming.

Two things happened that afternoon, firstly the harsh conditions (which really only existed in our protesting monkey brains) ended and secondly we crossed into Yellowstone National Park.

Immediately things changed. The paths through the cool forests were obstruction free, there were no climbs and our pace and spirits lifted. By 8pm our stomach pains had disappeared and we felt light on our feet again as we approached our pre booked campsite on the shore of Summit Lake.

Summit Lake was an oasis of tranquility and wildlife. And in the throws of a setting sun Sally and I celebrated our vortex escape with a Sour Patch Kid each. Arm in arm we watched the colours of the changing sky as the blue and pink dragonflies dined hard on fresh mosquito.

Summit Lake, Yellowstone

And the pace continued the following morning. A through the night pee had revealed the most spectacular of night skies to me - with shooting stars, crystal clear constellations and the most defined Milky Way I have ever seen. Its cloudy mass of billions of stars stayed with me all morning as we descended from the forest and into the geothermal wonders of the supervolcano.

What we didn’t know though was that we were walking into another vortex. Lured by rumours of AYCE buffet lunch, resupply opportunities, WiFi, comfy lounge armchairs and a bounce box at the Old Faithful Post Office we almost sprinted by the theme park like crowds and the spewing geysers to sit down, stuff our faces and look at our phones.

Old Faithful - every 91 minutes

Six whole hours later we were repeating our withdrawal pains of the previous day as we nursed our aching tummies and contempled paying $600 for a night at the Old Faithful Inn.

With steely determination we pushed out of the caldera’s basin and to freedom where we finally settled at our $4 campsite in Shoshone Meadows, grateful for the peaceful night that the half moon and the gentle breeze promised.

Bear trap - escaping the vortex

We were rewarded tenfold the following morning. As we walked the first few miles of the day we were treated with our very own display of thermal wonders. We passed up close and personal to sulphur fume spewing pools of superheated water and spouting geysers. There were no hoards, tarmac, throw away food or merch - just Sally, me, these natural phenomena and a crisp morning.

We had a matinee too. Witch’s Creek waters flowed with the temperature of a hot bath and clouds of steam rose from the golf course like landscape as we headed to our camp at Heart Lake at the foot of Mount Sheridan.

As the week passed we left Yellowstone, found our ferrel equilibrium, felt our weariness grow and saw another and probably our last Grizzly. The bears, by all accounts, don’t travel much further south of Yellowstone and as we entered the Teton Forest we began to plan when we could lose the weight of the bear spray cans and bear sacks that we carried. But this guy, by the river that split to two oceans, shone his shiny coat at us as his powerful body pounded into the forest lined water, just to let us know that we should sleep with one eye open for a little while longer.

Many things have happened this week. Challenges, natural wonders, dealing with constant hunger, exhaustion, gluttony and lethargy. But every minute is worth it.

Everything is worth it.

Meadow!

A new dawn

Shoshone Lake

Finally a big thank you to Charlie who gave us a lift from the trailhead into Dubois and joined us for pie at the Cowboy Cafe. Charlie has summited nearly all of the peaks in the US, and we caught him on the way to Gannett Peak (Wyomings’s highest). He leads a full sporting and academic life with wife and daughter in Tampa. He also has a great humour. Thanks Charlie!