A Grizzly Encounter

— July 19, 2014, is a day we will not forget. We’ve had some very exciting and memorable vacations through the years. This particular time at Glacier National Park was our second visit to the park. For this trip, we planned some longer hikes, including the Ptarmigan Tunnel, Mount Henry’s Scenic Point, the Highline Trail, and a few others. The hike to Grinnell Lake was one we had been looking forward to because of the scenery — as is the case with just about every hike in Glacier. After we stopped at Grinnell Lake for lunch, we decided that we were not going to backtrack the same trail. Instead, we noticed we could do a loop. An advantage to that was that we would see Feather Plume Falls. That meant going from Grinnell Lake via a section of the Piegan Pass trail to the Feather Plume Cutoff trail. We would then run into the cutoff trail that would lead us back to the south shore of Lake Josephine.

When you hike in Glacier NP, you must always carry bear spray and have it readily accessible. You also need to make enough noise so that you do not startle bears near trails. We knew the routine very well after having spoken with park rangers. On the way to Grinnell Lake, we did pass a family of deer and nothing else. Our grizzly encounter happened after Feather Plume Falls. We never saw anyone else on the trail. We knew we had to be extra careful, especially because the vegetation along the trail was pretty lush and tall. There were sections with bushes 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8 meters) tall. We were constantly talking, sometimes calling out “hey bear” and things like that, especially when going up a hill or near a curve. We finally made it safe and sound at the intersection that would lead us back to Lake Josephine. We stopped to rest and drink some water. We kept talking. After a few minutes, we gathered our packs and started going down the trail towards Lake Josephine. At that point, I heard strong crunches to my right, as if something was breaking twigs and small bushes. Because of the vegetation height, I could not see clearly. However, I did see a brown hump moving from my right towards where we had just been resting. I immediately told my husband it was a bear. We started moving down the trail because we knew the bear was headed precisely where we were standing. The bear was about 10-12 feet (3.0-3.6 meters) away from us at that point. My husband was ahead of me and heard me telling him to get the bear spray.

Because we had been talking when we had stopped, I am sure the bear was aware of our presence. I think that was one saving grace. Another factor to our advantage was that the grizzly was only interested in eating her berries. I had to stop and make a couple of photos to try to get a view of the grizzly. What you see above is a zoomed shot of her with her head down as she was eating. Unfortunately, I could not stop long enough to take a picture of the little cub that was following mama bear. The cub, unlike its mom, was curious about us humans. It stopped on top of the trail and looked at us. We never stopped moving, especially after having seen the bear had a cub.

I never had such an adrenaline rush in my life such as when this happened. We had previously seen black bears from a safe distance in other parks and in Glacier. However, this close encounter was a first — and hopefully the last of its kind. We were lucky to witness this and be left unharmed. We did not even have to break the bear spray.