I LOVE THIS WORLD!!!

I love the rain. I love the cold. I love the wind. I love this life. It’s hard to explain the joy of being blasted by cold knockdown winds going up a mountain pass and then having the vista open up into a whole new world as you peek over the top. It’s got to the point where I have a hard time sleeping indoors. The woods are my home now. Every day the trail brings more magic, more surprises, and more joy.

As you might remember, I decided to bounce up north and go SoBo (south bound) after getting my biscuits burned by the snows in The Wind River Range in Wyoming. Going SoBo gave time for the snows to melt while still getting the miles in. Getting to Glacier National Park was a combination of yogi’ing (basically chatting w folks and asking for a ride after you’ve convince them you’re not an ax murderer), a car rental, an Uber, and a lot of hitchhiking. You meet the best folks hitchhiking. You rarely get picked up by anyone driving a nice fancy car. Most of your hitches will be in old beat up pick up trucks or beater vans or cars with broken windshields. It seems that folks without very much are the most generous to share what they do have. I was picked up by a family from the Blackfeet Tribal Nation and it was so great chatting about their life, bumping fists, and having the dad ask me to call him Paint and me asking him to call me Two Forks. I was picked up and driven all the way to the Canadien border, 40 miles out of his way, by a Blackfeet spiritual singer songwriter talking about the universe and having him call me his brother and give me his phone number.

At the Canadian border, the customs agent was nice enough to come out and snap a picture of me. My permits for Glacier were to start at the Chief Mountain Trailhead. Apparently there was a deer carcass on the trail on the Waterton route which was likely to attract a lot of bears so there were some trail closures and we were directed to the alternate starting point.

Within the first couple hours of walking, the Belly Trail, I met a group of high school girls and their guide who had been put out for four days in Glacier. The only wildlife they had seen were a few ground squirrels and a deer. That wasn’t so encouraging. I was hoping to see at least a goat or a sheep or even a marmot. Within 10 minutes, I saw my first grizzly bear about 200-300 yards away across a sunny meadow. That was great until it was clear that the grizzly bear saw me too and galloped full speed right at me. Holy crap!!!! In slow motion I was reviewing in my head the video that the back country rangers made us watch of what to do to keep the grizzly from clawing your intestines out once it knocked you down. As it bounded closer and closer, I pulled out my bear spray. As it got even closer, off came the safety and I aimed it at his head with my finger on the trigger. And then, suddenly, as he got close, he just rounded up, spun around, and bounced away just as fast as he had come. Wow, I was just bluff charged by a grizzly bear!!! By the time I came to my senses, dug my phone out, took off the wide angle lens, turned the phone on, found the camera app, and took a picture, the bear was a dot in the distance.

At that point I realized, that this trip through Glacier was going to be really great.

Glacier was beautiful. 6 easy days of bears, elk, deer, moose, mountain goats, big horn sheep, waterfalls, snowy passes, glacial lakes, and big sky vistas.

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