Bear spray and the very nice people of Cody WY

On a road trip over the last week and a half I made a stop in Cody WY to do several things, but one was to do a little fly fishing out at the headwaters of the Shoshone river out at the end of the South fork road outside of Cody. The South fork road is known for abundant wildlife (and we saw elk, prong horns, big horn sheep and more deer then we could count) including a very healthy number of grizzly bears. With the potential for a bear encounter, I figured I should pick up some bear spray and stopped by Rocky Mountain Discount Sports in Cody. The people at the sporting goods store reaffirmed that I needed to carry bear spray and had a great selection available in the store, but during a very enjoyable discussion we were having on a number of topics (politics, etc.) the individual I was talking too suggested that before I bought a new can of bear spray that would be over $40.00 (since I only planned to only fish for a couple of hours), that I go out to the airport in Cody and see if they had any turned in by people flying out of Cody. So I took their suggestion and headed out to the airport and as they had indicated there was a locked plywood box in the entry of the airport to toss your bear spay cans into before entering the airport, so I headed to the admin offices at the airport and met a very nice person who said that they are happy to give out turned in bear spray cans and thought they might have one and dug around the office, but she came up empty, so I thanked her for taking the time and headed back to my The Cody Hotel where I was staying. While talking to the nice girl who had checked us in about my adventure looking for bear spray at the airport, she indicated that sometimes the hotel has bear spray that people leave and they freely give them out to other guests when they have them, but didn't have any at the moment, but she gladly offered the use her can of bear spray and she went out and got from the trunk of her car. So in the end I had bear spray when I went fishing (and also caught fish!), but in the process met a number of very nice people in Cody who all seemed to want to help you in whatever way they could.

The moral of this story is that the people in Cody are wonderful and that if you are ever in bear country and need bear spray, it might be worth while checking at your hotel or the local airport to first see if there might be bear spray you can borrow or have for free while you have your adventure in bear country.

I have been visiting Cody since the late 1960s and always have a great time there. It is twice the town that Jackson will ever be.  In the summer they have a nightly rodeo.  The Cody museum is among the best in the world. I have some friends around Powell that I used to pack with.  Great town and great people on the doorstep of the east entrance to Yellowstone.

Yay for Cody!  Had a similar experience at the airport in Jackson Hole.. a guy paid it forward by giving me their bear spray with the names of the two other people that had it prior to him on it.. I wasn't exactly sure why but I added my name to the list.. and I paid it forward by giving mine away at the airport as well... there is a risk that it been used but I was the 4th name and did a test spray and all seemed well.  Glad you had a great experience!

Same here. The folks at our B&B in Jackson had a bunch of unused bear spray left by others, they gave us a can for our Wind Rivers hike last summer and we passed it on to others when we were done.

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