The bear necessities

There was a time that it wasn’t spring until I spotted my first grizzly bear.

While I’ve stumbled upon few grizzlies in the fall, it was April when I expected to see them. They were following the elk herds and so was I, although for different purposes.

I’d seen grizzlies at night foraging through the Cooke City dump. We used to take girls there, drink beer and park.

Running into bears on foot in the backcountry in the middle of the day, however, was an entirely different experience.

I was only chased once, and that was up a tree. Following an elk trail through knee-deep snow in the timber, I spied a large bear on the same trail I was following headed my direction. I stopped, and slowly pulled out my camera, but the movement was enough to catch the grizzly’s eye. He immediately charged.

I figured he took me for an elk in close proximity and had an easy meal in mind.

There was a tree at my back and I quickly scrambled up it. The bear raced to the tree, eyed me perched 15 feet off the ground, realized who I was, and retreated.

Well, anyway, whatever the reason, he was soon out of sight. I never did get a picture.

Another close encounter happened as I was crossing an open sagebrush hillside on a sunny April day and spotted a young grizzly watching me from about 100 yards away. My first instinct was to run, but the nearest timber was a quarter mile uphill. Instead, I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures so the authorities would know what happened after I disappeared, and some hiker found the camera years later.

It would make a good story.

I took a few pictures and slowly began backing away. The bear watched for a while, then turned and fled.

This was in the days before anyone had heard of bear spray, and I never packed a firearm, figuring that if the bears were going to get me, they were going to get me.

More often I’d spot bears from a distance and give them a wide berth.

I was always looking for bears and thinking of bears, which is a good way to travel in the backcountry. There’s little time for day-dreaming when you’re sharing the same country with a critter that might just stalk and eat you.

Especially in the spring.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].