We stayed within the bounds of the park at Rising Sun Motor Inn, and it was so lovely rising at dawn as the sun began to wake the surrounding mountains. Cool, still and quiet; the only noise the crunch of our hiking boots on the road as we trudged to breakfast.
 |
| Early Morning Photography at St Mary's Lake |
Glacier National Park is home to an estimated 300 grizzly bears (ursus arctos horribilis), and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of the attraction. Nonetheless, I was understandably nervous about hiking in grizzy country. The risk of seeing a grizzly, let alone being harmed by one, is actually very small, particularly if you take the appropriate precautions. Hiking in a group, staying on trail and making lots of noise, especially when hiking into a headwind, near running water or rounding a blind corner, are key. As much as you might like to spot a grizzly, you certainly don't want to surprise a mama bear and her cubs. If all else fails, and you find yourself face to face with 300 kilograms of pure muscle, then you'll want to resort to bear spray.
 |
| Bear Spray |
I had one of these babies holstered to my hip the whole time we were hiking. It's basically capsicum spray on steroids and has stopped a number of attacks in the past. Most of the time, an initial bear charge will be a bluff, designed to make you pee yourself. You have to stand your ground and not run away - if you do, they'll chase. Then you back away slowly.
In the case of a true charge, the bear spray has a range of 9 meters. Grizzly bears can run at over 60 kilometers per hour (Usain Bolt tops out at 43). Pop quiz: if the grizzly bear is charging you at 60km per hour, and you must discharge your spray when the bear is within 9 meters of you, how long between the bear being in range and your head being in its mouth? 0.54 seconds. Not much of a window. Scary.
We hiked the Grinnell Glacier Trail, which is just over 12 kilometers in length and gains 560 meters in elevation. There are 25 glaciers left in the park, and it is predicted that all will be gone by 2020.
 |
| Grinnell Lake |
 |
| Contemplation |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Grinnell Glacier |
 |
| Downhill to Grinnell Lake |
If you look at the photo above, we hiked to the glacier from the the middle lake. Plenty of switchbacks, lots of rocks and no grizzly bears. We did, however, see a moose!
 |
| Moose |
At this point, our new telephoto lens had already paid for itself. The better part of a full day later, we made it back to the trailhead at Many Glacier Hotel exhausted and overheated. Have I mentioned how freaking hot it is over here? Northern Montana, high elevations, glaciers - we didn't expect it to be hitting 30 degrees.
We threw our packs in the boot of the car and started to drive back to our inn. Suddenly this gorgeous creature decided to pop out and say hello. The telephoto lens was, of course, in Danny's pack in the boot of the car. I jumped out, ran round and got it. Survived. Even though it's brown, this is actually a black bear - you can tell from its straight face profile, prominent ears and lack of a shoulder hump. Quite small, I suspect it was a female or a juvenile.
 |
| A Brown Black Bear |
This made up for the lack of grizzly bears - am I crazy for being disappointed that we didn't see one!? I'd done a bit of bear research before leaving Australia, partly out of curiosity and partly in the interests of being informed. Among the articles I read was
this one, about a grizzly attack in Glacier NP in 2005. I re-read it yesterday, and realised that it happened on the very Grinnell Glacier Trail that we had hiked.
Next time?
No comments:
Post a Comment