In recent summers, the Riddle Lake area has been closed until mid July for bear management. This means that the park’s Bear Management Oce has designated this as one of the areas in which to limit bear/human interactions in an effort to keep bears from becoming habituated to people and especially to allow grizzly bears large areas of wilderness without human contact. Humans are thus less likely to be injured, and bears do not have to be relocated or killed. The program, inaugurated in 1983, appears to be paying off in the relatively few cases of bears injuring people and in the apparent increase in the bear population. (There’s more about bears in the Living Things chapter.) 17.5/4.0 Crossing the Continental Divide.
The land here is so nearly flat that you wouldn’t notice a divide if it weren’t for the sign. 19.8/1.7 Grant Village side road to the east. This road passes the law enforcement ranger station and in less than 1 mile (1.6 km) reaches the village, the newest facility in the park. Named for Ulysses S. Grant, the president who signed the act establishing the park in 1872, Grant Village was built between the late 1960s and the 1990s. The Snake River complex of forest fires threatened the settlement in 1988 and burned some campground buildings.
