Bears on Trail

7/16/2018

We woke up at 5am, showered, and got out of the house by 6am heading to Glacier for our backpacking trip. We stopped in at the ranger station to get our permit, and they showed us an informational video about backpacking. The one key takeaway for me was that if you’re charged by a bear, you should spray the bear spray at the ground, because their faces are closer to the ground, and if you spray above the bears head on accident, the bear spray is useless.

We drove the additional 6 miles on the rough road to Bowman Lake and started our hike in. It was a 7 mile hike in, with very little elevation gain. On the way in, a group hiking out told us there were a few bears about 30 minutes up the trail. I had just got done telling Alex I would be fine not seeing a bear at all. Now I wanted to see the bear, so I knew when we passed it.

Bowman Lake from the Trailhead

We made lots of noise from that point on, and didn’t end up seeing the bears, despite the multiple bear poop sightings on the trail. We stopped for lunch on a rock above the crystal blue waters, and finished our hike to camp. There was one other group at the campground when we got there, so we had lots of options. We set up camp and jumped in the water.

This lake is amazing, it’s super cold, but not the coldest. We could actually stay in the water and get used to it, rather than having to jump out right away.

We hung out near the communal fire pit and food area and chatted with the two other groups. One group of three guys in their upper 20's from NYC, and the other group were two sets of grandparents with their shared grandson , all from rural Virginia and Pennsylvania. It was so much fun to hangout with these people. We were all laughing and giving each other shit from the get go. The folks from Virginia were fishing all day, and cooked their fish over the fire. It looked amazing, and they even shared some with us!

Campsite setup

We were warned by the Virginia family about a buck that came into camp yesterday and tried to steal the sweaty, salty clothes that were hanging around their campsite. We laughed, didn’t think much about it, until we headed back to our campsite. We found the buck in our campsite with my shorts in it’s mouth. I tried yelling at it and throwing rocks near it, but it did not care. It just went further into the woods with my shorts in it’s mouth…my only shorts for the trip. I was wearing long underwear, but did not have any shorts for the hot day hike the following day. Fortunately Alex brought three pairs of shorts.

We hung out by the fire and chatted with everyone for the rest of the evening before calling it a night. We’re heading out early tomorrow for a day hike to Brown Pass, which is about 14 miles round trip, with some actual elevation gain. We’re going to miss this group of people tomorrow, as all of them are leaving the backcountry tomorrow morning.