Yes, that’s a Grizzly. And yes, we took that picture while on foot in her territory. She was a Momma with two cubs also. This is just one of 6 bears we encountered while at Glacier (4 grizzlies and 2 black bears). This was our stark reminder that this park, while full of natural wonders and thousands of tourists armed with cameras and walking sticks, was no playground. This is raw wilderness and must be treated with the respect that is due to its original and most primitive inhabitants. We did our homework before coming to glacier and were well aware of the beautiful scenery that we wanted to see, but also the bone-chilling fact that we were walking around in the territory of beasts that will do anything to protect their young and need to be enjoyed from a safe distance. Yet we were not intending to just sit in our car and look out from the safe confines of our seats.
We were hiking up rugged trails into the back country to find hidden lakes and majestic waterfalls, which lead us straight into the home turf of beautiful yet terrifying creatures like the one pictured above. Equipped with nothing but some rudimentary spears that we carved at our campsite (more to make the kids feel safe then anything) and knowledge about how to act and how to hike safely in bear country, we set out on a scary yet awesome adventure in the park. We sat in the car in construction blockades and drove for hours on end to arrive haggard and frustrated at overflowing parking lots crowded with dumb tourists (one asked the question “at what altitude do deer become elk?” while others who were staying at our campground sprayed themselves with bear spray thinking it was some kind of repellant only to find to their dismay that its PEPPER SPRAY!!) The good news is that it only takes a short hike up a rugged trail to escape all the chaos and find some of God’s most amazing natural treasures on this continent! We spent 4 full days in the park and were barely able to scratch the surface of the things there are to enjoy here. We could easily come back year after year for a week at a time and still not get bored. This park is too massive to be absorbed in just a few days. We saw moose, Big Horn sheep, mountain goats, chipmunks, squirrels, waterfalls too many to count, and, of course, bears! But most of all we found fun and beauty. Some of the simplest things were the most pleasing, like searching for colorful rocks to skip on the river or watching the Dipper bird walk into the river rapids to hunt for bugs under the rushing white water only to pop back up somewhere else perfectly dry due to the oily sheen on his feathers. How cool is that! Kendall found that one for us...we were told about the Dippers, but only Kendall was observant enough to find one. What a great time for young and old. The roads and trails will test the nerve of most any driver or hiker, but the rewards are immense for those who push past the fear and wisely respect the wild corners of this park while they push their bodies and minds to new heights.
