Monday, July 27 Many Glacier

We were up early to get a campsite at Many Glacier. We arrived at 7:45 at the campground and were by no means the first people there. Gone are the days of getting there at 11 a.m. and getting a site. We got a site that was ok, and had a nice talk with the guy who was leaving it. He had just been to Yellowstone and had a cool wolf sighting there, and he had also been to up to Bowman Lake. We set up and I made smokies and eggs in the saucepot, as we discovered we had left the camp frying pan at home after I brought it in to wash it.

The Slopes of Mt. Henckel above Many Glacier Campground

We did some bear-scoping but saw nothing.   So, we did some wildlife drives. We had talked to one ranger when we were scoping at the pullouts by the hotel road and he told us there had been a black bear around. We then drove past the hotel road and there it was, 30 feet from the road with people getting out of their cars and walking down. The bear got spooked and went into the trees and we went to the next pullout and stopped. The ranger came up behind us and we told him where the bear was and that people were getting too close. I was watching through the sun roof for it to come out of the trees down and behind us (a safe distance, of course) but he didn’t.
We decided to head into the Park Café for lunch and made a few phone calls. Rosie hadn’t wanted to hike the first day. We stopped at the Gladstone cabin but they weren’t around. We went back to the hotel and read for a while in the annex, watching the slopes across the lake for wildlife.  When we were leaving saw a black bear crossing the river just below the hotel falls. We stopped and I had Rosie get out to get pictures

and then I started getting nervous because once again, people were getting too close. He went in the woods and Rosie and I turned back towards where we’d seen the other bear earlier and there she was again! She got spooked and we went up and turned around so we went back by the falls and there she was, on the rocks not far from the road and people were walking within 10 feet of her. We zoomed down to the ranger station and I’ve never driven that fast in my life in this park – I ran in, told them to get arranger down there NOW and went back. The darker bear had moved off but the other was still there with people way, way too close. Finally a ranger showed up and we left. I just do not understand people who approach bears. There is so much information out there, including what is given to you when you enter the park, telling you the dangers of bears. Do people not read it or do they genuinely think these animals are not dangerous? I worry that people will push them until the bear retaliates by mauling them and that the bear will be blamed, and if you are stalking a bear you have only yourself to blame for getting mauled, no one should blame the bear. They are just trying to find food and they need a lot of it. I get very, very upset about this. Rosie was saying the park needs to hire me as a patrol to keep the bears safe. I’d do it for free, if they gave me a uniform. NO one listens to me when I don’t have one. They think “Who the heck are you?”.

We went back to camp and had ramen noodles and French bread for dinner. Then we did another bear drive and on the cliffs East of the hotel there was a really interesting black bear with unshed blonde hair on her back and very dark fur everywhere else. It was fun to watch her forage and it was nice that she was across the river and a safe distance away where no one was going to pursue her, so I didn't need to get upset!

We went back to the parking lot and there were Jim and Karen with their big scope looking at a goat up on Grinnell Point. We were looking around and Rosie spotted a griz up there too! He was steadily going towards the east and the place where he would go around the cliff face and out of sight. There was also a goat…we were first watching him and watching him look down and that’s when Rosie noticed the griz. While we were watching the griz and goat, a coyote came into view too! It was exceptionally long and lanky for a coyote, enough that it caused me to look really closely several times to make sure it wasn’t a wolf – but unfortunately it was only a coyote. Darn! THAT would have been really awesome, to have a wolf, griz and goat above us on Grinnell Point. He finally went out of sight. Jim and Karen and Dave were going to attempt a summit of 8084 (an unnamed peak above the Iceberg Lake Trail)  the next day so Jim and Karen parked their truck in our campsite to sleep in for the night to help get an early start the next day. We made a fire and had popcorn, a very nice evening! It was fun to spend some time with them.