Hiking With Grizzly Bears in Glacier National Park, 1976

by KL Brisby
(San Diego, California, USA)

1976, somewhere near the middle of a 30-mile hike, I left Logan Pass on the trail north.

This trail is cut into the steep and sometimes sheer west side of the mountain ridge. The trail was kind of congested at first, but I powered through.

I was making great time, striding past tourists and less aggressive (OK, smarter) hikers.

I finally broke clear of the masses. As the trail wrapped around ridges, the mountains blocked more and more of the noise behind me. I had a walking stick with a bear bell, and before long that and the crunch of my boots was the only sounds I heard.

Apparently the ridges blocked noises going forward as well as back.

When I rounded the next corner, suddenly a large grizzly bear was walking toward me!

I wasn't right on him, maybe a hundred yards away, but there was nothing between us except the trail. It was very sheer to the left, and way too steep uphill. My bell caught his ear, but he continued trudging along the trail toward me. It was pretty clear where the bear was headed.

I reversed course (so much for me making good time on my hike), not running but let's say power hiking.

As I rounded each ridge heading back, I called out that there was a grizzly bear behind me!

There was no one to hear.

Finally, a couple ridges back, I saw the first few folks behind me on the trail.

They stopped, I suppose trying to be sure they understood what I'd said. Then they pointed and ran.



The bear seemed to be keeping its same pace, which was still faster than me because he had closed about half the distance between us. Surprisingly, I sped up.

I could hear the noise building up ahead of me, and around the next bend I could see people scrambling ahead. It wasn't panic, but they looked thoroughly motivated.

Then I did break into a trot, then a run, trying to get back closer to the road and noise and humans, or at least more distractions for the bear.

But something more important happened. As I got closer to the pass, the grade on the land above the trail lessened, and the grizzly bear went loping right up.

In less than a minute he was well up above the trail, poking around the flowers, just another that-brown-blob-is-a-bear blip for cheap tourist cameras.

Not sure what I could have done differently. Even if he'd heard me sooner, the grizzly bear was stuck on the trail, same as me.

I guess the lesson is that sometimes you need to share the road. And let the thousand-pound grizzly bear get where he's going first.