We just came home from Yellowstone yesterday. We saw 5 bears, from much closer than the recommended 100 yards. That’s because they were all on the side of the road. The first was a young bear grazing near a bridge. People had gathered to look at him... I figured the guard rail would inhibit him if he attacked. But he just kept grazing. The second was a young adult bear on the side of the road, stalking three antelopes that were on the other side of the road. I tried to get my camera out for the perfect shot, but he ran across the road. Meanwhile, the antelopes ran away parallel to the road, and by the time the bear got across the road, he seemed to have lost sight of them. We didn’t stick around to see if he would find them again—while watching a hunting bear would have been exciting, we were also part of a traffic jam. A bit further along the road, there was a mama with two yearling cubs, right by the road. We got nice pictures, then continued to drive very slowly (in case one of the cubs darted into the road). I should specify that the only time we got out of the car was to see the bear by the bridge, since we could not see what everyone was looking at. For all of the other bears, we stayed in the car with the windows up.
We could be upset because we were looking for moose and never did find any. But we saw a buffalo cow that had JUST given birth, dozens of other buffalo, several bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, elk, deer, and five black bears on that same day. So we really have nothing to complain about. (I still want to see a moose.)
More years ago than I would wish, I was fishing with my father in a remote northern Minnesota lake early in the morning. As we came around a point into a cove we met a mother moose swimming with her calf. I’m not sure who was most startled, but she turned and and took the baby ashore as we watched. Quite memorable.
In the Tetons, you can see plenty. The Gros Ventre campground is not very far from Jackson and has plenty of visitors, they are even seen in the campground. It is located on the river and about mile from the campground coming from Jackson, it is a moose convention in the afternoon during summer afternoons.
I used a P900 Nikon which has an excellent zoom lenses and is a reasonable size camera to lug around all day.