For my first Yellowstone hike of the season, I went with Brenda, the hospital's foundation director, to Elephant Back Mountain, near Fishing Bridge Village.

The weather was damp and cloudy, which is nice for hiking but not so great for photos.

Elephant Back Mountain is a trail I hiked last year and a good introduction to hiking in the park -- not too difficult but a decent elevation and with a decent elevation gain and (normally) great views of the Absarokas and Yellowstone Lake.

This trail is near Natural Bridge, another great yet relatively easy hike, which is closed until the end of June or early July because it passes near a trout-spawning (and thus bear-frequented) area.

Elephant Back Trail isn't closed seasonally, but bears do pass through the area on their way to gorge at Bridge Creek, which the Natural Bridge Trail crosses.

The point being, just as we started the hike, I was looking down at my feet while crossing logs laid across a wet, muddy patchand peeked upwhen I reachedthe end of the log just in time to see a huge, black silhouette cross the trail about 20 yards in front of us.

After beating a hasty retreat a of few hundred feet, we slowly and cautiously retraced our steps, making noise and looking for signs of what only could have been a bear.

With no signs of the bruin and no hint that he even noticed our presence (he probably was gorged on fish and ready to lie down and sleep), we finished the hike.

The short of it being: a) I had no time (or safe distance) to grab my camera before the bear was long gone, and b) it was cloudy and rainy all day, so the best photos I got were of Sunlight Basin on the way back home.

Sunlight Basin has great views of some of the highest mountains in the Absarokas (from Chief Joseph Scenic Highway at Dead Indian Pass) and Chief Joseph Highway (Wyoming Highway 286) dead-ends into the Beartooth Highway (U.S. 212), where a left takes you to the northeast entrance to Yellowstone and a right takes you over Beartooth Pass -- which at 10,974 feet is higher than Vail Pass -- and (eventually) into Red Lodge, Mont.