Why the universe put me face to face with a grizzly bear in glacier national park

> “Leonard, grab the rifles”, said Bert Gildart to his partner who was still in the cabin. Bert and Leonard Landa were seasonal park rangers in Glacier National Park and had just spent

the night in the small cabin near Trout Lake. It was August of 1967 and Bert and Leonard were in the middle of what would become known as “The Night of the Grizzlies” (which became a book of

the same name written by Jack Olsen). For those not familiar with the story, on the night of August 13th, 1967, two girls were killed in Glacier National Park, on the same night, by 2

different bears. What made this even more unlikely, is that up until this point, no person had ever been killed by a bear in the park. The day before, Bert and Leonard had to hike up the

4-mile trail to Trout Lake and recover the remains of Michele Koons who was fatally mauled by a bear at the Trout Lake campground. Now, in the early morning light, the bear who had killed

Koons stood 50 yards away from Gildart. > “Hurry up Leonard, its right here!” When Leonard came out with the rifles, the bear started moving towards them. Both rangers shot at the same

time and killed the bear who had mauled Koons less than 48 hours earlier. Fast forward almost 50 years to the day… It is a very warm summer day at the Many Glacier Lodge as we start our

hike. My wife, who grew up in Glacier Park, had set up a weekend of hiking and exploring in the Many Glacier Valley. It was a weekend to celebrate her girlfriend's 50th birthday, and we

had rooms at the historic Many Glacier Lodge which sits in what could be argued as one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. On this day, we planned to hike up to Grinnell Glacier. It

is about a 10-mile round trip hike from the lodge. I had never done this hike, but it looked like it wouldn’t be too strenuous and we would get to take in some spectacular views along the

way. The trail starts out near the lodge and loops around Swiftcurrent Lake. At the end of the lake, the trail goes over a hill and drops down to Lake Josephine. One of the options for

visitors who are not into hiking is the ferry boat tours. The boats will take you from the lodge to the end of Swiftcurrent Lake, and there is another boat that you can catch over the hill,

that will ferry you to the end of Lake Josephine. > I have always had a mixture of curiosity and fear of Glacier > National Park, I grew up in Minnesota. I am a flatlander and have

> never been a big fan of heights. The other great thing about > Minnesota is that you are at the TOP of the food chain, unlike > Montana, where you fall to number 2, just below the

 Grizzly bear. As we hiked to the end of Swiftcurrent Lake, and over the hill to Lake Josephine, the temperature was warming to the upper 80’s. We talked and laughed and told stories. There

were quite a few people on the trail at that point so my natural fear of running into a Grizzly was low, and I was really enjoying the hike. The enjoyment part of the hike was about to end.

As we popped out of the woods and started the hike along Lake Josephine, a twenty-something girl was hiking toward us. As she approached our group, she nonchalantly told us that she had just

seen a mother Grizzly and a cub down the trail. “How far down the trail”? I asked. She replied, “Oh, you won’t miss it, there is a huge pile of bear scat right in the middle of the trail,

the bear was just past that.” I would like to introduce you to the voice in my head, who is a total jackass. Let’s refer to him as Larry. Larry at this point did not like this news and was

screaming at me to turn around. He was also telling me that I am a complete dumbass for even going on this hike and that if I do get attacked by a bear, I fully deserve it! The other three

people on this hike with me took the news as something good. My wife had promised her friend, who had never seen a Grizzly bear in the wild, that she would show her one this weekend for her

birthday. I, on the other hand, could live without seeing another Grizzly. I had come upon a Grizzly on the Loop trail a few years before and had already crossed that off of my bucket list.

My sales pitch about returning to the lodge, sitting on the deck, and having a beer failed, and we continued on the hike. Larry was pissed! What in the hell are you thinking, a mother and a

cub right off of the trail? What could possibly go wrong? When Larry is pissed, it shows on my face and my wife has been with me long enough to know what is going on inside my head. It is

usually her cue to start giving me crap, which she proceeded to do as we continued up the trail. With each step closer to where the bear was spotted, Larry continued his barrage of insults.

I think as a last-ditch effort to get me to turn around, Larry reminded me of the universe and how it could be conspiring against me. You see, Bert Gildart, the ranger who killed the bear at

Trout Lake 50 years ago, just happens to be my father-in-law. Wouldn’t the perfect Hollywood script if, after 50 years, the bears finally get their revenge and maul Bert’s daughter and her

husband? Larry was convinced of this storyline and continued to tell me about it. And there it was, just as described, a huge pile of bear scat in the middle of the trail. Finding this

landmark did nothing to help the attitude of me or Larry. My head was now on a swivel and every moving leaf or hiker that came around a corner was now a Grizzly bear. Luckily for me, we

never saw a bear, only what the bear left for us on the trail. Once we got a mile or 2 past that point, I was able to calm down. The views were spectacular and I was reveling in the fact

that we cheated death. We came upon a large waterfall and decided to stop for lunch. Larry, on the other hand, had stopped screaming at me but continued to remind me of everything that could

still go wrong. He was also nice enough to refresh my memory about another bear attack that happened a little further up this trail. Just past this waterfall, the trail begins to climb up a

rock outcropping with tall cliffs on the side of the trail. In 2005, a father and his 18-year-old daughter ran into a bear at this point on the trail. They were both attacked and thrown

down the cliffs. They had to be helicoptered out and barely survived. The father wrote a book about it called “A Grizzly Tale: A Father and Daughter Survival Story”. I was happy to hear that

the boyfriend of my wife’s friend wanted to just stay at the waterfall and relax while the girls climbed the rest of the way to the glacier. From the waterfall, you could see the glacier at

the end of the trail. This was close enough for me. We waited for an hour or so for the girls to return. It was getting hot as we started back towards the lodge. As we came down the

mountain approaching Lake Josephine, I noticed the ferry boat down towards the other end of the lake. It was not cruising in a straight line towards our end of the lake, it was doing circles

near the shore. Larry piped up and told me that they must be looking at the bear. Unfortunately, Larry was correct. We again passed “the scene of the scat” on the trail and did not see a

bear. The ferry had stopped circling and now passed us below. I had hope that we would soon be back at the lodge enjoying a cold beer on the deck. The universe had different ideas. As we

made it about ¾ of the way down the lake, we started to catch up to 3 girls who had been hiking ahead of us. Ahead of them, there was a father and son who had stopped on the trail and they

were looking up the hill to the left of the trail. Let me set the scene. At this point on the trail, there is a huge mountain to the left that slopes down to Lake Josephine on the right. It

is wooded in this area and you are only able to see about 50 yards in front of you. If you look at the satellite picture of this spot on Google Maps, you will notice that it is a very narrow

area for the number of people and bears who share the trail. As we approach the father and son, my wife asks them what they are looking at. The son says that they heard some noise up in the

trees and they are trying to see what it is. Before Larry or myself have time to think this through, the noise turns into a Grizzly bear. Approximately 20 yards up the hill, directly above

us on the trail is the bear. And the bear is moving down the hill right towards us. Immediately. I grab my bear spray out of its holster and take the safety off. We all start moving back

down the trail, except the father and son who, for a reason unknown to me, went in different directions. The son moved backward with the rest of us and the father went the other way on the

trail. All this did was give Larry more to contemplate. Here is how the new situation now maps out. We have all moved back down the trail about 30 yards except for the father who is now

somewhere on the other side of the bear. I am in the front of the pack with my bear spray locked and loaded pointing down the trail. My wife is directly behind me telling her girlfriend to

“move up here and look at the bear”. The bear now reaches the trail, turns towards us, and takes two steps in our direction. I am in no way a bear expert, and really don’t want to be, but

looking at the bear as it hit the trail, it looked small to me. It had to be the cub that we heard about earlier. After the initial shock, and a moment to digest the current situation, Larry

is going nuts! “See, see, I told you to go back to the lodge earlier. Now look at you, you are standing on a trail looking directly at a Grizzly bear who is coming towards you. It is the

cub so mom isn’t far behind and since the guy went the other way, the cub is now in the middle of two groups of people. I’m sure mamma bear will be very happy to see her cub in between 2

groups of people! It won’t take long at all for momma to rip you to shreds, I hope you are proud of yourself dumbass! At this point, I really couldn’t argue with the voice in my head. He was

right on all accounts! I was now standing there looking directly at a Grizzly bear, who was moving towards me and my group. In that small moment of time, I remember feeling a mixture of

fear, awe, respect, and helplessness. If that bear wanted to do some damage, there was nothing in the way except for my little can of bear spray. Studies say that bear spray works, but I

really don’t want to test out that theory! After two steps in our direction, the bear turned left off of the trail and headed down the hill to the lake. It was a hot afternoon and apparently

the bear needed to take a swim to cool off! I couldn’t be happier with the bear’s decision. My wife, on the other hand, said we should go down to the lake and get some pictures of the bear

swimming. I won’t even tell you what Larry had to say about that! I remember telling everyone to pick up the pace as we headed towards the lodge. We probably made it another ¼ mile down the

trail before we stopped and looked back. There was the bear, still swimming in the lake. We spent a moment watching, and then continued on to the lodge. I was still thinking about running

into the mother bear around every corner. Later that evening, as we all sat on the deck of our room and replayed the situation. My wife decided that the bear was probably a two-year-old who

had just gone out on his own. His behavior and lack of interest in us, and the fact that the mother was not right behind him made this a logical theory. It was much easier for Larry and

myself to calmly discuss this with a cold beer on a deck two stories above the ground. We both felt that a bear attack in this location was probably not going to happen! You cannot control

the universe. I am very happy that the universe decided not to make this into a Hollywood movie. I believe that we were all out there that day to remind us of the poor girls who were killed

50 years before, and to understand the bear’s dilemma. Glacier National Park has been discovered. The park sets attendance records every year and the trails get more and more crowded. The

National Park Service made huge changes to how they managed bears after that night in 1967. I believe it is time to make more changes. I don’t have the answers and I’m really not sure who

does, but I think with the number of people who now visit the park and hike in the backcountry, there will soon be another fatal attack. Looking back on this, I feel very lucky to have been

that close to a Grizzly bear in the wild. I hope that I am never that close again! Larry agrees.