Bears!!!....Whattya mean they have bears?
Bears
Okay everyone's favorite topic...as most of you probably know Glacier has quite a reputation for its grizzlies...they have black bears as well but the grizzlies definately get the fanfare...Well first off I did not see any...although we did come close...one evening at one of the lakes we were camping at Susan saw something and thought it might have been a grizzly.....or a moose..come on now they kinda look alike..we found out later a moose had been frequenting the area. What we did find out though was that another Glacier Wilderness Guide group, that was 24 hours behind us, on a trail we had come down the day before, had grizzly a encounter...two grizzlies..so the group had to sit quietly for a 1/2 hr and finally the bears moved on.
On one of our trails we got an orange grizzly-on-the-trail warning sign...and Susan and I were thinking "Exactly what is possessing us to go up this trail?" We later found out that at a campsite, about 6 - 8 miles from where we were staying, there was what the park calls a "Grizzly Incident", a bunch of campers were cooking around the camp site and a mama bear and two of her sows walked right up to the campers...somehow the campers got them to leave, they probably threatened the grizzlies with power bars or something...anyways the campsite was immediately shut down. More than anything I was pissed off when I heard this, this was an extremely unusual event to happen, it means the bears are becoming more habituated to humans...and some people are not following the camping and backpacking rules...I just don't understand why people don't use good judgement..they put themselves and the bears in danger...oh well enough of that. And just to put the bear issue into perspective, in 60 or so years in the park, only 9 people have been killed by grizzlies, something like 90 people have drowned and about 40 have died from mountaineering...the chances are very slim that one is going to be killed by a bear...just follow the rules...although I have to admit I was not looking forward to making any new bear friends.
Fires
Yeah..somebody mentioned something about fires going in Montana....just kidding I think people must have thought that I was stuck right in the middle of it...no, sorry to dissapoint everyone but I was far from the action. There was one big fire burning in the North side of the park but I was way down south. The park was very hazy and is probably the reason why my pictures didn't turn as well as I would have liked them..of course that could also have something to do with the photographer :) We did get kind of lucky though, the day we packed out the NPS posted a level 4 warning for the park, which meant absolutely no campfires and worse yet no gas stoves were allowed into the park...yikes...I guess it would be nothing but Power Bars and gorp for those folks.
Rafting
The rafting portion of the trip was down the north fork of the Flathead River, the Flathead river seperates Glacier National Park from the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which is suppose to be another great place to go. The rafting is also affectionately known as the "Float and Bloat" trip by the guides...there were not a whole lot of rapids on this trip...which was kind of a bummer..but floating along in the warm sun was nice...the group of people on the trip were also a little different, not the type of people who would be backpacking for six days. Susan and Dominic rafted also so we had fun and Susan and I hopped into one of those small 2-man self-bailing kayaks....so much fun...and on the last days we got nine rapids...and I made sure I got right in the front so I could get soaked...Yipppeee!
If you haven't been to Glacier...Go!!! What are you waiting for? It's beautiful...don't go expecting to see glaciers though, you will be dissapointed, there are only about 30 left in the park and they are quickly dissapearing...what you do want to go for is to see the effect that these glaciers have had...the valleys that have been carved out, the formation of the rocks...And if you aren't a backpacker don't let that deter you from going...there are plenty of non-backpackers, tons in fact...let's just say the RVs are out in force..and Going to the Sun road has been quoted by some as being the most beautiful road in the country....I'd have to agree.
Well I'm out of here and it's time to get back to reality...work, commuting, California cuisine...but I'll always have Glacier. Later!
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