Many Glacier Campground
The same neighbor's husband had washed their dinner dishes there the night before and my other neighbor did the same thing. Before retiring I went to use the restroom. When I returned there were 2 people standing within 10 feet of my tent watching a third person wash their dishes at the pump for all the food to go on the ground. The campground rules are very specific in that all dish water nust be contained, the food strained out and put in a garbage can and the waste water dumped in the facility provided next to the restroom. Why is it so hard for me to calmly walk over and explain this to these people? They probably have the same concerns I do and would be glad to know the proper way to camp. Yeah, right? The most likely response would be something like "Who are you the camp nerd?" "What are you going to do tell on me?" The best I can do is to mumble "Morons" under my breath loud enough for them to hear and leave it at that.
I made out the check to register for another night at Avalanche, but something did not feel right. I re-examined all my options and found I had not camped at the Many Glaciers area of the park. For some reasoned I had been discounting and glossing over this area since I arrived, even after the Norwegians mentioned they were going to stay there. I must have decided early on that it was not for me and had that in my mind. I broke camp and was on my way from the southwestern part of the Park to the northeastern part. This required driving over the pass, past Rising Sun, exiting the park, driving 10 miles on reservation territory and re-entering the park.
By noon I had a campsite an Many Glaciers. The sites were closer together without as much privacy, but adequate. I remembered reading that the Motor Inn across from the campground had pay showers. I paid $1.25 for a token and took an 8.5 minute shower in a not very clean men's shower room with an unusually large amount of long hair in the drains and on the countertops. It was my first shower in over a week, but I could have kept going.
By 1 pm I was headed up the Iceberg Lake trail without a journal to take notes with (I ran out of paper). I did however have my GPS unit which came in handy. The trail was very open and relatively flat following the contour of the mountainside. It was a hot and sunny day. The first one I had while hiking. I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The views of the surrounding mountains and glaciers were spectacular. About 500 feet in elevation below us and 1/2 a mile away was a river winding through a fir forest. A moose with large horns was wading in the river. It was quiet and peaceful with a steady flow of hikers well-spaced going both directions.
About 1 mile up the trail I came to a group of eight or so people having an animated discussion. As I walked by them up the trail, one of them nonchalantly said, "There is a bear blocking the trail up ther." "Gee thanks," I thought. I noticed a young boy had tears in his eyes and was protesting to his mother that he wanted to go back down. Just then a man in his mid-thirties came running down the trail from the direction of the bear. "Its OK. Those other guys started yelling and scared him off. We can go up there now," he said to the mother. "Well he is really freaking out," she said pointing to her son, "Maybe we should go back." "Well you take him back then," he yelled in the kind of immature 'I'm getting my way' voice I have seen so many men that age talk to theirr wives. I turned and headed away from the bear along with a couple that were not with their group, marking the spot with my GPS unit.
I thought it was the smart thing to do based on all the warnings I had drimmed into my head over the last week. Not to mention I had read in the local paper that a couple had been attacked by a bear on a trail the week before and had serious physical damage. I did not believe for a minute their story they took every precaution and did not provoke the bear. I believed they were just like the squabbling couple and the dozen or more groups of hikers I saw on the way down who when warned there was a bear on the trail immediately pulled out their cameras and picked up their pace towards the animal.
It was not just for safety reasons (as a later incident would be) but also the fact that part of the reason Yosemite and Sequoia have so much trouble now is that the bears are accustomed to humans. Thats why in Glacier they tell you to make a lot of noise on the trail so the bears will stay away and not be accustomed to human contact.
I immediately reported the incident to the ranger at the ranger station. A good natured Herman Munster type with gray hair. He hardly looked up from his work was he jotted down the lattitude and longitude I gave him. Maybe I took his literature more seriously than he did or maybe he had something else on his mind. I would think they would at least send someone up the trail to make sure the bear cleared the area. Another inicident I read about in the paper was about a bear that was hanging around a certain road in the park and drawing throngs of tourists with cameras. The park rangers tried to scare it a way with firecrackers but it kept coming back. Finally it was hit by a motorist and killed.
I returned to camp, ate lunch then scouted the area on bicycle. There was a enormous and gorgeous hotel on the edge of Swiftcurrent lake. There was atrail around the lake that lead to Josephine lake. I decided to try my hand at fishing for the rest of the afternoon. I was almost 4 pm.
There were few people on the trail around the lake. There was plent yo places to stop and fish though. Luckily I had wiped my legs with cutter before leaving because the mosquitos were very thick and swarms were as tall as the fire trees around the lak. I lost my brand new rooster tail and last swivel when my line got tangled casting. I improvised and tied my least favorite spoon directly to the end of the line.
There was a tour boat that came from the hotel to a dock on the other side of the lake. I passed t Swiftcurrent dock and walked about a hundred yards to find a similar dock on Josephine lake and a tour boat approaching. These were fairly good sized lakes. Roughly the size of Cottage Grove Reservoir. I moved along the bank fishinge where I could. I found a nice rock sticking about 10 feet from shore. After several casts I caught a bush hanging about 4 feet over the water. In trying to shake my lure loose, the top end of my pole came looses and slid down my line to the bush. I thought about it for a while, then emptied my pockets, slipped off my hiking boots and entered the water. Understand the water was very cold, the bushes grew right out over the water, the rocks were covered with silt and were slippery, and the water would be well over the bottom of my shorts and possinbly my waist only a few feet from shore. I walked the precarious 20 feet along the shoreline, unhooked my lure from the bush, and returned safely. No biggie.
I met a man apparently with his daughter and grandaughter. He said all he managed tgo catch was a rock the other day. I told him all I caught was a tree. I moved farher down the lake to get a better view of a waterfall on the other side and try some more casts. A few other hikers passed by. Then after no one had passed by for a while I noticed that because the mountains were so close to the lake it was almost as if tghe sun had gone down. Also, the tour boats had stopped running. I was in the middle of bear country by myself and it was getting a little dark.
I headed back the way I came using all the best bear techniques I had been taught. I clapped ny hands, I hooted and hollered every step of the way and I kept my eyes open. I turned the corner about 50 feet before the Lake Josephine dock and there she was. She was a brown bear about two hundred pounds (my size) sitting down about 3 feet off the trail and 25 feet in front of me. If I had not been looking I would have walked right by her. She was using her fore paws to grapple with some grass, raising it to her mouth for her tongue to strip it of its nutrients. It was just like a scene out of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. She looked very content and happy and just the cutest thing I wanted to go play with her.
She looked at me and I looked at her, then I backed slowly up the trail the way I had come. I thought about trying for a picture but was not sure if she would be offended, so I kept backing. Once out of her sight I realized my predicament and felt a little panicked and at a little loss of what to do. She was blocking my only way home. I started hooting and hollering as loud as I could to see if she would move away, but then I did not wnat to go check to see if she was gone.
I decided I would try to walk along the overgrown shoreline to get past her. She was about 50 feet from the shore but there was a thick collection of hemlock trees in between. As I approached the shore I saw the tour boat dock and noticed someone working on the boat. "There is a bear on the trails," I yelled at him expectiong to get an echo back to the effect "what do you want me to do about it?" "Stay there he said and I'll go get the other boat and pick you up." I must admit I was shaking a little bit. I had trouble tying my boot as it became entangled in the underbrush.
He arrived with a non-descript silver aluminum boat, I hopped in and he took me to safety. He seemed a little nervous hiumself as he suggested I wait and we could both continue dow nthe trail together. He spent a few minutes closing up the tour boat and removing the battery and toolkit which he carried with him down the trail. Before we left another young individual showed up and shrugged his shoulders when I told him there was a bear about 50 feet away and we were leaving. We met a couple of men about halfway to the Swiftcurrent dock. They thanked us for the warning and continued on. I remarked to Ben (the tour boat operator) that maybe I was overly cautios because I had been warning people of bears all day and everyone was so non-chalant about them. He said that they are all that way until they see one up close. That made me feel better, especially coming from someone who had a residence on the lake and had seen plenty of bears. He said there had been reports of one in that area for the last several days
I thanked him for the ride and we parted ways at the Swiftcurrent dock. I met a young couple on the way back to the campground. They were very interested in whether I had caught any fish. I said no, but warned them about the bear. The young ladies response was "lets hurry maybe we can get a picture of it." The young man's response was, "You really did not catch any because I caught a lot of Pike on Steenburgen lake. Yeah, what you need to use is a spinner. The fanciest brightest one you got. I used a yellow one." Then they hurried up the trail. Maybe its just me.
It was almost 7 o'clock at night and the Ranger station was closed so I had no one to report my sighting to. As I was disengaging from my fanny pack and emtying my pockets back at camp, my new neighbor approached me. He was asian and inquired, "You hike? You fish?" "Yes," I said. I told him I did not catch anything and told him about the bear. "Oh yeah. We saw bear too. Whole bunch of us. With binoculars." Maybe its just me.
Just then a young couple approached with official looking t-shirts on. The male was very persistent in pointing out that he worked for the park service, which seemed odd. He said they were here to tell us about the nightly programs, also odd since I was used to the ranger doing that. Then the punchline came. They were with the christian ministries and wanted us to come to their services. My asian friend was a real busybody and engaged them in conversation while I put the rest of my gear away and tried to decide how many beers I needed to buy from the camp store to calm my nerves.
After they left the campground ranger showed up to tell me about the nightly programs, suprise. I told here I was unable to report my bear sighting because the ranger station was closed. She said I could report it to her. As soon as I told her the location and time she put her pen and paper away. She said that a mother with two cubs had been hanging out in that area for a week and has not been responding to efforts to scarfe her away. I am glad I did what I did because who knows where her cubs were.
I bought one beer, one grape soda, three fancy bright spinners and some swivels. I finished my Simak novel and retired around 10 pm. It was still light out and I had nothing to read. Several times the campground resounded with the heavy sighs characteristic of me having some on my mind. My 7-day pass would expire as I slept. I had to decide whether to stay or move on. I was leaning towards continuing with my original plan to camp at the KOA in Spokane then decide what to do from there. I was toying with the idea of heading back to Grat Falls and Helena to find a place to stay for a few weeks while I worked things out. Tomorrow was another day