Friday, July 31 - Scenic Point and Goodbye to Glacier

It was the camper’s worst morning…everything was soaked. Even the tops of our sleeping bags were wet from the tent leaking. Clthes, pillows, sleep pads, EVERYTHING was sopping wet! That made it an easy decision to pack up an stay on the west side in a motel to dry everything out tonight! I give Rosie a HUGE pat on the back for not complaining one little bit! She took it in stride and went to get hot chocolate and coffee (for me) at the campstore so I could deal with wet stuff. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before (or any night recently, for that matter) so it was even more impressive that she wasn’t grumbling at all.

Site 19, Many Glacier Campground

Swiftcurrent Motor Inn and Mt. Henckel

We have watched many, many grizzlies up there!

We arrived at the Gladstone cabin a full 10 minutes early even! Talked to Jack for a while and made plans to meet at Lake McDonald Lodge at 7:30. Rosie, Scot and I took off for East Glacier. I treated them to breakfast at the Whistle Stop Cafe. I’d been craving their asparagus omelettes for months, we were supposed to have them the morning we started our backpack trip. It was just as good as I remembered.  We left the Whistle Stop and didn't have to look far for Stinky.  We were amazed that Scot did not know about Stinky the East Glacier dog!
We drove into Two Medicine and looked around for Jen, Jim, Karen and co. but didn't see them or their vehicles anywhere, so we drove to the Scenic Point trailhead.  The first stop was Apistoki Falls...a pretty little waterfall.

Appistoki Falls, Two Medicine Area, Scenic Point Trail
 I didn't tell Rosie and Scot that it was near here that someone had been killed by a grizzly in the 90's.  We had passed a ranger led hike on our way in and they were just headed to the falls when we were going down. 
This is a very, very steep  trail.  I had heard that but didn't realize HOW steep.  There was a torn up log on the trail.  There is little break from going up, up, up.  Poor Scot had a cold and was coughing a lot but never complained.  We stopped often for rest breaks and watched the clouds.  At one point I was worried about some dark clouds - there is little cover on this trail if it lightning starts I called down several switchbacks to the ranger leading the hike and she said she wasn't worried, so we kept on ascending. 

This trail is 3 miles one way but it feels like far more.  I really wonder (as have others) if the posted mileage is actually correct.  Near the top, the trail meanders through a forest of dead whitebark pine trees.  They are beautiful in a sad way.

We reached the top - or what we THOUGHT was the top.  It looked like the end of the trail.  Then someone told us that the "technical" scenic point was 20 min. further out.  Rosie and Scot said they were done - so we called it "close enough" and stayed put to rest. 

Rosie and Scot - the "Closer" Scenic Point

The hike down was of course much faster but still seemed longer than 3 miles.  

I love this trail photo!

A half mile from the trailhead, someone asked us if we'd seen the bear...apparently there had been a black bear hanging around the trailhead.  We hadn't...we had seen scat that was pretty fresh, but no tracks.

We got in the car and stopped in East Glacier for Gatorade for the kids and iced tea for me, and hit Highway 2.  I had gotten a room in Columbia Falls for the night because our sleeping bags, tent, and clothes were so wet.  On our drive to Columbia Falls Scot read to us from his "Haunted Montana" book.  There are some very eerie tales in there!  We checked into our room and I spread out wet camping gear to dry while Rosie and Scot watched tv.  Then we headed to Jammer Joe's at Lake McDonald Lodge for dinner...and more ghost stories.  I've heard stories about the pizza at Jammer Joe's being greasy and not very good, and about the horrible service. We had GREAT service - our waiter was from Turkey - and the pizza was great. 

We finished an hour before Jack's show was due to start.  Rosie and Scot got invited to play kickball with a group of park employees on the big lawns outsde the lodge,

 so I walked around and took pictures (I spend very little time at that part of the park) and read my book. 

Jack's show that night was in a rustic log auditorium adjacent to Lake McDonald Lodge. 

Here is a link to Jack and Mariah performing "Circle of Life" that night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHy_xM9GCt0

After the show we said goodbye to them, probably until next summer.

Scot Gladstone, Rosie Morrison, Mariah Gladstone

 I hope we can get Jack to Minnesota one of these years.  Once again, for more informaiton on Jack and his amazing work, go to:    http://www.jackgladstone.com/

Rosie and I went back to the Super 8 in Columbia Falls for a DRY night's sleep.  It was dry, but not very restful...it was very noisy and at 2 a.m. someone kept banging on the door at the end of the hall and screaming for someone to let them in. I called the desk and they said there was nothing they could do.  I'm picky about things like that.  I won't be staying there again....it it was cheap it would be a different story, but due to it's proximity to Glacier, it is definitely NOT cheap.

Thursday, July 30th - Close Encounters of the Ursine Kind

We decided to hike up Swiftcurrent Pass  it was finally a BEAUTIFUL morning – blue sky and no clouds in sight!

This was the weather we had 98% of the time last year, for an entire month…we hadn’t appreciated it then, I found out.
We headed out on the trail,

with a quick moose sighting at Fishercap Lake (but no twin calves like last year).

We talked to some nice people on the way - there were a lot of people on the trail.

After the swinging bridge we headed around and to the base of the switchbacks.

I was talking and not paying attention and at one point kept going straight when the trail turned sharply uphill. I tried to find a route through some cliffs and eventually realized…this just didn’t look right for such a busy trail. We back-tracked and found a very obvious trail…no idea how I had missed that! Apparently I talk too much while hiking :)   .

We headed up a ways and then stopped for lunch. As we ate, I was looking back at the slopes above the lake, across the little valley. I saw something brown and figured it was a moose – we’ve seen moose up there before. Then a little something dark came barreling along. “ROSIE! ROSIE! Bear!” I yelled and I grabbed the binoculars (I had decided at the last moment to bring them…thank goodness!). Sure enough, beautiful, classic, cinnamon colored grizzly with two dark cubs of the year!

 It was wonderful to see them in different terrain, farther from the normal spots close to “civilization”. We watched them for a long time and eventually she started making her way down. Whenever we looked up we saw a lot of people stopped up on the trail way above us…probably another bear up there. Eventually I realized "our bear"  was headed right for the trail. We had a decision to make...we could keep going up as planned and risk being the last ones down the trail later, knowing the bears were around. Or, we could wait for someone coming down and meet up with them. The more people the better, when you are hiking with a grizzly around. Rosie thought that was the better idea. The bear reached the trail and they disappeared into deep brush. Soon a moose came trotting by and out of sight…probably because of the bear.

Eventually an older gentleman showed up. He had lived in Alaska for years and now lives in Kalispell. We joined him and soon were also joined by a family of 3 from Elk River coming down from a night at Granite Park Chalet. Our group of 6 finished our descent from the switchbacks and saw a couple of people coming towards us. They told us the bears were just around the corner and 100 yards off the trail. This would turn out to be very incorrect – we reached that corner in 30 seconds and kept looking around at where they could possibly be 100 yards off trail on the west side of the river as they had indicated. We made a great deal of noise and saw and heard nothing. We got another 1/3 to 1/2 mile or so up the trail and thinking we probably had left the bears far behind, weren’t making quite as much noise.  The older man from Kalispell/Alaska had insisted on taking the lead due to his bear experience. Rosie and I were the last two in line. I had just commented on how thick the trees were when Rosie heard animal footsteps in the stream and the guy in the front yelled “Whoa! Get out of here!” and backed up a few steps. There was one of the cubs, crossing the trail less than 2-3 feet in front of him. Two or three feet!!!!! I pushed Rosie back as the guy in front continued to yell "SHOO!" at the bears and got my bear spray out and ready and yelled “we need to give her space, we need to move back!” and the guy in front didn’t listen…he kept yelling “shoo” and “get out of here” to the bears, as the sow and other cub crossed the trail!  I couldn’t believe it…that is precisely the worst thing to do in that situation, in my opinion. Then the bears were across the trail and off into the brush and the guy took off. The rest of the group went forward so I grabbed Rosie and pulled her after me to follow them…we didn’t want to get left behind not knowing where the bears had gone. We made a great deal of noise of course and a short time later got to the part of Bullhead Lake where there were lots of people.  They were all looking up, and there were the bears way up in the brush. The man who had been leading our group in had disappeared by this time but we stuck with the Elk River family. I wasn't too keen on hiking with him anymore anyway after that behaviour.
On the rest of the way out we warned everyone we saw to make a LOT of noise and keep their eyes and ears open and to not let their kids hike in front of them.
In hindsight, I don’t know what else we could have done differently except ask the person we joined up with for safety reason what he would do if we encountered the bears. If I had known he’d yell at them like that, I would not have been with him. For anyone who thinks bears are bloodthirsty creatures who stalk and kill people at any given chance, this should change your mind. That bear actually had every right to charge the man in front yet she didn’t…she restrained herself and got her cubs to across the trail. These were this year’s cubs too, when the mothers are the most defensive. She exercised considerable restraint in not charging or attacking. I still can’t believe it happened…we were 10 feet away. We met an off-duty ranger on our way out and told her about it and she told us to stop at the ranger station and tell them.

We showered, spent some time reading, and headed to Rising Sun for Jack Gladstone's campfire performance there.  We sat back farther than usual to give others a chance at the front row.  We set up the video camera and there were quite a few people there waiting when the Gladstone clan finally arrived.  We went to say hi and Mariah simply said "YOU LEFT!" (meaning several nights ago when we left during the night) and then claimed Scot cried for hours when they woke up and we were gone (she was kidding).  It was a GREAT show (well, they all are).  At the end, to my surprise, an old Owatonna friend walked over to say hi, Jill Myers!  She and her family had been backpacking in the park and now were camped there.  What a small world! I had known that she would be in the park, but didn't expect to see her.  We talked for a while and somehow got on the subject of Trinity hi-league trips and how we all got in trouble for singing the Indiana Jones theme song while going through US customs coming back from Victoria, British Columbia.  It was great to see her!

We were invited back to the Gladstone cabin for pie they'd purchased at a Hutterite stand that day so Mariah came with us and we rushed to the store in St. Mary to buy ice cream before they closed.  We made it with a few minutes to spare and then enjoyed some REALLY YUMMY pie!  We also got to see the "alien vegetable" they bought from the Hutterites.  I am sorry to say I didn't take a picture but I've never seen anything like it...many appendages. I'm not even sure what type of vegetable it was supposed to be.

We made plans for Scot to hike with us the next day while Jack was busy and Mariah was working and headed back to camp very late.