A Bear Between Us: 3 Stories

The first time I sprayed a charging bear!

I would never approach a bear. There is absolutely no sensible reason to do so under normal circumstances. ‘Normal’ being the important word here. Leading a guided wilderness experience is anything but normal. 

The guide should be waiting on everyone hand and foot. Regaling them with entertaining and informative banter. Comforting them as well as encouraging them in times of hardship on the trail. A trip is designed and executed. Not like a personal trip. So this is not real life so to speak. Not ‘normal’.

Under ‘normal’ conditions I would never approach or try to threaten a bear. 

But, remember, guiding isn’t ‘normal’—although it is real life—very real life!

My bosses at Montana Raft and Glacier Guides loved me. I was one of the most successful and highly rated guides in the history of their company. But that is not what I think they loved me. I think their real value in me was giving me difficult trips, and I would normally always come back with elated guests and with an entertaining story. And they found they could spice things up a bit by giving me extra challenging and undesirable trips.

That’s how I found myself shocked and staring into the eyes of six angry baby boomers and a sherpa. All of them arguing with me, “The office told us that since this is called the ‘Boomer Backpacking Trip”, we would not have to carry any group weight. All that stuff is to be carried by the guide and sherpa. You know, we’re old, like baby boomers. Thats the name of the trip…”

I shoot a look over to the sherpa, “That’s what Judith told me also.”

No one had told me this. Let me break it all down briefly: normally on a backpacking trip  here in Glacier, the guide would split up group supplies between the guests so the guide isn’t laden with 25-30lbs of food. Since this is a trip designed for old, out of shape people and their expectation was to be coddled and to carry zero group gear.

I run into the office not to confirm it. I knew at this point from their faces it was true. I ran into the office to thank them for not telling me. I think someone actually said, “Well, looks like you have the start of a pretty funny story already. Can’t wait to hear how this whole thing turns out.”

Already it is a very not funny story to me. I take a minute or two to calm down and do some yoga breaths before returning to the pavilion to repack eight bags of backpacking supplies neatly packed and separated—downsizing them into three big bags and a few small ones. I would be carrying it all. Me and the four foot ten inch ninety-five pound female sherpa who would be sharing the load. It was her first trip out. She has worked in the office for a few years. Our own tiny little office version of Tenzing Norgay.

How can this be funny I wonder? 

Right now I have a non stop dribble of curse words going in my head. 

I do not look forward to the next three days. 

Yet, I cannot wait to get out on the trail. 

It makes everything tolerable. 

What actually happens on this trip has nothing to do with the boomers, the sherpa, my bosses or the heavy load I have to bare, hand carrying two bags of food in on the trail the first day. 

We head to Logging Lake. A wonderful treed hike with a few lakeside campgrounds with loons, possible howling wolves and a few breathtaking small mountains close by. Its subtle beauty for the Glacier area. But its nice. And on this trip the lake is nice to swim in. An amazing break and chance to cool off. Everyone just gets in up to there knees. I swim out farther into the lake than I have ever swam out before. The guests are terrified for me. This entertains me. And being alone in this vast body of water directly in the middle of it staring at the perfect blanket of lodgepole, doug fir and larch leading up to the west side of the Livingston Range. A massive and beautiful wall of peaks made by ancient glaciers long extinct. When this glaciation party happened nearly this entire mountain range was supposedly under an ice sheet with only a few craggy peaks protruding. Like the glacial ice sheets of Western coastal Alaska. Immense. Powerful. Formative. Unadulterated white vastness. Perfect. What is left are these beautiful mountains. A testament to that flawless smooth white skin it once had, hiding the massive chainsaw of ice that is a moving glacier.

It turns out to be a good trip. These people are characters. What Boomers wouldn’t be who chose to do a trip like this? They are truly wonderful people. Much like nearly everyone who seeks out these holy places. Are they wonderful as a result of coming to places like this? Or are they wonderful to begin with and thats why they seek these places out? Either way, I am lucky to be with them in this wilderness. 

Our second night we hike deeper into the park. We hike around a bit and visit a small alpine lake which is rumored to be very good for fishing. I long for my fishing gear in these moments. But a guide should never put his or her desires above waiting on the guests. And I devote nearly all my energy to them. 

We have a decadent and amazing trip in the park. Stories are told. Moments of contemplation are contemplated. Silence quiets us all. Mostly the loon makes noises the last night. 

The second to last morning is always exciting for me. It is our last full day. And this little magic show is about to finish and tomorrow the curtain will drop. I always start to feel a bit of sadness. This wild stage is where I truly feel alive. But I accept it to finish the show for a rounding set of applause—and tips. That last morning I ready my granola bar jackalope shit (to be explained later), and I send the guests ahead on the trail with the sherpa to hike at their own pace and I would catch up. This is an excuse to give me more time to finish dishes. But it’s really an excuse to rest after three hours of cooking and waiting on people. One more push I think as I exhale out and filter another bottle of water. How many god damn bottles of water have I filtered in my life I wonder? And smile. Chuckling to myself in acknowledgement of how lucky I am to be pissed about filtering in a place like this. But I do always end up with a sore shoulder and wrist each season from it. 

The guests have been gone for at least thirty minutes. I reluctantly cram the last of the awkward sacks into my seventy five lbs pack and hoist it onto my shoulder. ‘The Pain Machine’ is what I call this pack. Nice work Osprey. No matter what I do to this pack, it just keeps on going—and causing me tremendous amounts of pain. Both at the time of wearing it, and for a few months after the season. It took me over twenty years to break my first Osprey pack. This one will most likely out live me. I finally gave it to my sister. I told her only her husband is allowed to wear it. Sorry Gary.

I get on the trail and all the worlds problems disappear. Despite ‘The Pain Machine’, it’s a beautiful day. Hot, but not too hot. Clear, yet we are hiking mostly in covered forest so we won’t get sunburned. And not much traffic on the trail. Except for someone who may need to be medivaced and a menacing wild animal which I am about to have an encounter with. 

It is known, and I have heard about the black bear at Logging Lake. A troublesome pouty animal who sometimes gives hikers trouble. I have heard about this from rangers in the area. Naturally I am skeptical because the only person in this park I trust less than a ranger is one of my guests. But this was told to me from an old backcountry ranger. So I gave it some stock. If they were young, or worked in the office I would have dismissed it completely. Since it came from a backcountry ranger, it was, however, on my radar. And I had warned the guests, “hike with at least one other person in earshot of at least two other people.” 

Safety in numbers. I am the only one to hike alone.

And when you tell that to people who pay you a large sum of money to guide them through bear country, generally they comply. And these awesome Boomers did. And they were in a good mood this morning. I could tell because after about forty-five minutes of hiking I had still not caught up to them. And that was OK with me.

So I slowed my pace and started into trying to remember this summers project: ‘Hello I Said’ by Neil Diamond. It’s a little known fact bears disdain Neil Diamond. So I try to remember and sing the songs from my childhood while hiking. Last year it was Harry Chapin, this year largely one song. I was nearly through all of the verses. This was not for me. It was to scare off the bears and to keep myself company. 

In between Neil’s genius verse “Did you ever hear about a frog who dreamed of being a king? And then became one,” in perfect key and tempo I looked up and less than twenty feet away was a very large black bear standing halfway out on the trail with its body exposed. If I had walked a few more steps I would have run right smack into it. 

There is a hissing and a popping sound coming from the bears head. Although it barely seems to be moving. Like bad animatronics. It is very surreal. 

My heart sinks and all of the air is vacuumed out of my body in a gasp. 

Training helps in these situations. Before I know what has happened I have two cans of bear spray out, safeties off, pointed at the bear and a Go pro is recording and strapped to my chest. 

“It’s OK, bear. It’s OK,” I say soothingly backing up while continually raising and lowering my hands extended out from my belly button towards the bear. Like a mini version of someone bowing with their arms—the interspecies universal sign for “I mean you no harm, you are totally OK. We are OK. And I am leaving.” It has always worked for me. 

I back up as far as I can to still be able to see the bear, 20-25 yards. The bear doesn’t move. 

These types of situations are very strange when you encounter them alone. It is a very unique experience unless you live in an area with a massive bear population. Even then, locals will go their entire life without seeing a bear. Others, will have ten bears a year walk through their backyard. And a very few unlucky blessed people will come far too close to a bear—both walking away without any contact. I am hoping this is that type of situation.

I wait patiently. Talking soothingly to the bear and the Gopro. I can hear my speech and breathing calm down in the tape. The bear is a seemingly distant black shadow. The wide angle of a Gopro does not lend itself to wildlife photography. Unless your intent is to get great first hand footage of a mauling. And that is not my intent whatsoever. So I wait patiently with a bear blocking the trail. Six Baby Boomers and a tiny sherpa walk ahead of me towards the parking lot, civilization and perceived safety. Not knowing that there is a bear between us!

This is not the first time this has happened. Although this is a far more intense and lasting situation than the others. 

The summer before this on a trip just north of here I found myself in a microcosm of this event. We were coming all the way from Waterton National Park to Lower KIntla on our last day of a 4 day traverse of the park. Only about 45 minutes from the parking lot, with a feast waiting for us in several coolers in the back of our van I was hiking only 30 to 40 feet ahead of the guests who were strung out in a group ranging from a few feet to a dozen feet apart. We were walking along Lower Kintla Lake. The trail winds along the north side of the beautiful lake for its entirety with trees and shrubby vegetation partially covering the lake as we hike. The emerald waters are crystal clear and you can see large trout on its edge if you approach the waters edge slyly enough. 

As we walk along I am talking. I am almost always talking. I apologize to the guests for this. But it is my job. I also do this to scare away the bears. Sadly it is very affective. And I know we see less bears because of it. But it is far safer than startling a brown, black, adult or cub. It’s nothing you want to mess around with. So I tell stories about the trees, rocks, animals, trails, cultural history and myself. Almost all of the stories in this book have been told many times on the trail. 

Because we are nearing the car I trail off in my stories. I like to end the trip in a very subtle but special way. On the last day I take all the extra weight from the guests that I can. I tell them to hike with as little water as possible. Stopping to fill it a few times to rest by a small stream or alpine lake. I encourage everyone to be quite and reflect on the trip. Think about what it means to be in wilderness. Think about what it means to be in ‘civilization’. And then I encourage them to leave some of the ‘civilized’ emotional baggage you brought with you, and take some of the ‘self affirming wilderness baggage’ back with you. I normally choke up when I say this little speech. So I say it quietly with sunglasses on with my gaze cast down. My attempt to hide my emotions drives the message home more seriously. Generally people are moved. Think about it. We are all exhausted. Sore from head to toe. Our bodies are exerting more energy on a daily basis than a normal week in our ‘regular’ lives. We are worn emotionally thin by lack of sleep, overwhelming awe inspiring beauty and the realization that we might just pull this trip off. We are going to make it. We CAN climb these mountains. We CAN cross the Continental Divide on foot! We CAN hike, sleep, eat and live in bear infested wilderness and escape unscathed.

And then I hear a scratching noise. It sounds like claws on flaky lodgepole pine bark and a sharp exhaling sound. I swivel my head and see a small sub adult black bear standing no more than 20-30 feet away and just behind me. Training: both cans of bear spray out, safeties off. 

“It’s OK, it’s OK.” I say.

I look at the guests who are behind me. The first couple are seeing what is happening. The rest are absorbed in quite conversation. I watch, holding my breath, as they literally run into the back of the backpack in front of them. Pilling up, with Mikki, holding her arms out and preventing everyone else from waking in front of her towards the bear between us.

The bear looks from me to the group worriedly. It settles its gaze on me, most likely because I am the one talking.

“It’s OK,” I keep saying soothingly.

The bears escape is cut off. Its back is to Kintla Lake. I am on one side of this small bear, the group of guests are on the other side of it. It could easily run between us and escape. For it is much faster than us. A bear can run nearly 35 miles an hour in short bursts. But it must feel like we are trying to trap it. And it’s freaking out. 

All of this happens in just a few seconds. As soon as I realize we are freaking the bear out and cutting off its escape my mind does several quick logistical computations and decides the best course of action is to move towards my guests to close that gap rather than move away and take a chance of scaring the bear right TOWARDS my guests. So I step back up the trail slowly towards my guests keeping an equidistant distance between myself and the bear. I move to the far part of the trail stepping just off of it to maintain our safety buffer. The bears head slowly turns as I step just in front of the whispering, elated, wide eyed, gaping mouthed, trembling guests. Some would say I stepped towards the bear. But really, I just gave it an even greater sized lane to use to escape. 

And the bear did just that. It dropped to all fours and nonchalantly strolled right in front of us and disappeared into the shrubbery some 20-30 yards away. We watched it as long as we could. We continued on with a spring in our step that only comes from having stared into the eyes of a wild animal standing on two legs just a few feet away from you. We were electrified. Like school children. A perfect way to end every backpacking trip. 

Before we get back to Logging Lake and the roadblocking black bear, a brief story of another encounter with a ‘small’ black bear that would end entirely differently:

This occurred just a few weeks ago while writing this short story—years after the above mentioned events. 

As short as possible…:

I am hiking back from Exit Glacier. Kenai Fords National Park, Alaska. Summer 2019. End of the day. Fading light. I myself am fading as well. Nearly 10 o’clock in the evening. I have just climbed to the top of the Ice Fields (and limped back down) with my fiancé. She is a slender 5’10”, 120 pound Indian woman. As gentle and graceful as the day is long. We are literally at the end of the trail. I am nearly straddling the line where the dirt and paved sidewalk meet. Just a few hundred yards from a parking lot where our RV awaits. There is a paved path here that continues in a different direction than we hiked today. This is for handicapped and small children to be able to have a nice little accessible loop to see this unbelievable landscape. I am ahead. I turn looking down the paved path. As I shifted my gaze to look back up our trail at my fiancé to congratulate her my eyes come to rest and focus on a ‘small’ sub adult black bear less than  20 feet away and just behind me in the open forest floor. It’s body is angled oddly and it’s looking at me like a dog which is suspicious of you. Training manifests itself in these situations and I am on autopilot.

“Bear! Get your bear spray out,” I say to my fiancé in a low voice while I get mine out. I continue in my one tried and true bear communication, “It’s OK. It’s OK.” pointing the can of bear spray at it with the safety off. My fiancé stops where she is. And begins to get out her can of bear spray.

I am puzzled at what I am seeing. A ‘small’ bear near the trail just standing here like this. In between two trails really. The paved one and the dirt trail which we have just descended. What the hell is going on here I wonder?

I am happy my fiancé is getting out her bear spray quickly, because I am a little freaked out. I am 97% sure this ‘tiny’ bear is going to turn and trot into the woods here any second. In fact, I KNOW this. I have seen it SO many times. But still I know that it could do something else—because of that day back at Logging Lake…And although I am 97% sure this bear is about to turn and walk away, I am 3% shitting my pants, because I know what it could do. And what in fact it actually does!

Like I said, I am glad my fiancé is getting out her bear spray quickly. Earlier in the day just over the top of a very popular and crowded (there were only four people there—so I wouldn’t say really crowded—but it was the largest concentration we would see of people any one place on the Exit Glacier trail all day), I stopped to take a small detour to get a slightly different angle for a photo. And there, just above the ‘crowd’ as I was gazing at the massive glacier a black bear and three cubs popped up from the grassy horizon line just in front of me. Maybe 20 yards away. 

Training: bear spray out, I say, “Hey bear, it’s OK, it’s OK,”and turning to my fiancé, GET YOUR BEAR SPRAY OUT AND TAKE OFF THE SAFETY,” I quietly stammer out not wanting to scare her and I shudder thinking of what would have happened if I had walked over this hilltop just a few moments later. You can’t dwell on things like that.

My fiancé stops about 15 feet behind me. Because of the top of the hill she cannot see the bear and cubs just beyond it, very, very close to both of us. She says very harshly, “You jackass, quit playing around! Don’t even—“ She continues berating me thinking I am pranking her and that there is no actual bear. 

The black bear stopped, glaring at me when I began speaking. It reacted to my shouting fiancé by standing to look over my shoulder for the source of the noise and huffed once towards her cubs, warning them. The adorable little cubs stand and drop back onto all fours like the cutest damn thing you’ll ever see. My fiancé still thinks this is a prank. I swivel my head and shoot her a look of what I hope communicates fear, anger, and urgency. 

“You better not be messing around,” she continues cursing me.

While I continue, “It’s ok bear. PLEASE GET YOUR BEAR SPRAY OUT NOW! It’s Ok bears. PLEASE GET YOUR SPRAY OUT! It’s ok bear…”

She scrambles quickly and unwisely to my side finally seeing the close bears as the mother drops back down to all fours and then turns to walk into very dense hillside shrubs. The cubs, stand, look at us, and bound into the bush behind their mother.

I tell my fiancé, “Darling, I will NEVER, EVER, EVER, play around in any way by saying ‘bear’ if there is not one. What you have to promise me, is if I say there is a bear, immediately get your bear spray out and ready it for action.” Later I would not believe how fortuitous these words would be. Also later, I would think ALOT about what would have happened if I did not say these words. You shouldn’t dwell on things like this. Sadly I still panic thinking about this incident. 

There we were, in the fading Alaskan light. Exit of the Exit Glacier Trail. Oddly behaving black bear. I am straddling the line where dirt meets pavement at the end of the trail. And my fiancé is obligatorily getting out her bear spray standing behind me on the trail with the bear nearly between us. 

She gets the bear spray out. I hear her take the safety off. There is a sudden stillness and silence where I can hear everything. And then everything happens at once. The bear charges full speed at my fiancé. Its hair standing up in all directions. Appearing to double in size. It is huffing with each small lighting quick bounding step. It moves so fast it becomes a ball of fur with a head. My slender fiancé unleashes with a blast of bear spray. While I start to scream, “Nooooooo!” and step towards the action helplessly. 

My scream is guttural.  I am not talking to the bear. I am really screaming because I am not accepting the fact that the bear is charging the woman I love and there is nothing I can do about it. I am completely helpless. They are both just out of my bear spray range of spray. And although I am just a few dozen feet away from both her and the bear, I am too far away to help her.

“Noooooooooo…” my screams trails off to silence as the bear comes to a halt just at the edge of my fiancés cloud of bear deterrent. 

Stillness again. The bear turns it head and looks at me. I spray my can of bear deterrent for the first time in my career and snap back into reality. And training kicks in.

“NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I yell ferociously, spraying yet another volley of white hot capsaicin in the direction of the bear. The wind is carrying it in my direction. I am the only one it hits. This is VERY common. I cannot inhale, and my eyes involuntarily shut. 

“NO BEAR, NO!” I spit and start blinking a lot to be able to stay in the fight. Bear spray does not affect you like you think it would. Although its capsaicin, the active ingredient in heating up culinary peppers, it doesn’t ‘burn you’.Simply put, you just can’t breathe and you can’t open your eyes. You would think its gonna burn you. But all I ever really think is, “I cannot see and I can’t breath”. And for an animal like a bear which traverses the wilderness with its nose, it’s perfect for its job. It’s crazy stuff. Oh yeah, and your face and lips feel like they are on fire. But the overwhelming feeling is one of panic at not being able to breath or see.

“Hello? Are you OK? You guys seeing a bear?” we hear from just down the paved trail. 

I am still yelling and honestly about to charge this bear myself. The bear turns and begins to make its way into the darkness. 

My fiancé makes her way to me and we see an old couple come into view from just up the paved trail.

And they have a dog.

A cute pug. Most likely the cause of this whole situation. See appendix 1

They are amazed at our story. My fiancé is electrified. The pug is adorable. I cannot breath or open my eyes. The older woman we meet is a retired ER nurse she uninvitedly begins administering first aid. She says, “Everything is OK. Except your left eye. It’s closed and off center from the right. It looks like it’s melting.

“That’s normal, I was born like that,” I say. It is true. I can immediately see she feels bad for pointing it out. I feel bad for her feeling bad.

Then we regale several other groups of foolish hikers who are about to head up trail to get a view of the glacier before it gets too dark. All of them return with us to the parking lot so they can retrieve bear spray from their car before restarting their hike. What in the hell were they thinking, not having bear spray at that time of the night and going for a hike? 

Once I could breathe normally and open my eyes the burning becomes more noticeable. My eyes, lips and entire face burned all night. A physical reminder of these experiences that I love. My face and lips did feel really smooth for the next few weeks after this… I was beaming and smiling until I passed out sometime after midnight. Still, it was hard to sleep. Dwelling on what if my fiancé had thought I was pranking her again. I know I shouldn’t dwell on things like this. 

So those are the multiple stories within this story which is actually only one part of the ‘story’ about this trip to Logging Lake. The one about the bear at Logging Lake. The other ‘funny story’ about the heart attack guy with puffy hands who may need to be medivaced out—but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Where were we? 

So there I was!

Logging Lake.

Boomer Trip.

Sure to be a ‘funny story’ to share with the office staff.

Black bear blocking the trail!

A KNOWN problem bear! 

I am so angry with the park in these situations for not hazing these bears. They’ll haze any bear near the road in minutes with a hail of exploding cracker shells and bean bag projectiles to keep traffic flowing. But they let bears and moose in the backcountry run a muck. Those cracker shells and bean bags would be better used on these animals and the tourists that stop their car in the middle of the road to photograph animals. It is the motorist causing the traffic—not the defenseless wild animal pushed into this postage stamp of protected wilderness crawling with tourists. 

It has been a while at this point. I know at least 25 minutes. The bear just standing on the trail. Half of its body exposed. I have seen this before with a mother and cubs. The mom protecting its cubs. But this bear has no cubs—Its just being ornery. Most likely it has done this in the past and stupid hikers have thrown food to lure it off the trail. Bad idea! Another excellent job for cracker shells and bean bag projectiles. This bear won’t get a hand out from me. Not today. Not ever!

It starts to bother me. I have already tried to be nice. I have waited silently. I have explained in non threatening verbiage and tone that my guests were down trail. I had lunch for them. They were paying me to guide them through your home turf. I will be out of your area momentarily if you let me pass. The forest is far to thick or I would have tried to walk around.

So I did the only thing I could do when my guests are down trial and I am trapped up trail with a bear between us: I start to move towards the bear! It’s unnerving doing this with a group of people behind you. It’s psychotic behavior to do this by yourself. I would never do this normally. But I am guiding a group of people and they are depending on me. 

I step closer and closer to the bear slowly. Talking the entire time. Bear spray cans both pointing forward, safeties off. Go pro rolling. I am shaking and you can hear fear in my voice on the tape. The bear does not react until I get about 15 feet from it. It’s SO hard to keep moving forward. Like I am in slowly hardening cement. My body preventing me from continuing towards this 300-400 pound bear. The bear is hardly reacting. It is moving its head just a little. As if it is slowly shaking its head to say ‘no’. Small, little, head nods. Around the twelve feet zone the head shaking stops. The bear simply turns it’s head toward me and hisses revealing teeth. I almost faint.

“it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok,” I say as passively as I can like a child about to start whimpering. 

As I am thinking , “Should I spray this can of bear spray?” The bear charges! Rather, it bluff charges. It stomps on the ground and steps towards me a few feet! I slowly shrink back repeating my non threatening mantra, “It’s ok, it’s ok…”

I am beside myself with anxiety. Mainly scared shitless about getting scratched or bitten and more than a little nervous about the guests. I was saying all that stuff earlier kind of being funny, but now it’s getting real. The guests really are depending on me. And god knows how far up the trail they have made it.

I approach the bear again and again trying to ‘nice guy’ my way though, to no avail. 

I should have just sprayed the bear. But I was of a different mind set back then. I used to think about this in terms of just manners: this is their home, and you don’t go into someone else’s home and mace them when they are a little upset at you for your uninvited visit. Like I said, this is my ‘old mentality’. Now I see this as an opportunity to educate a stupid bear. Because if this bear does this and hurts a person—it’s a dead bear. So go out there and be a bear educator!

At this point I panic. And I get angry. I finally decide I am going to have to spray this bear and slowly make my way up the path. The bear reacts as it has been stomping on the ground like a pouting child while walking towards me. 

But this time I am not ‘Mr. Nice Guy’.

I yell like a crazy person and keep right on going at the bear ready for a fight. And just as I am about to spray both cans of bear spray at it, right in that 10-12 feet zone it turned and ran up the trail at a sprint, not making a single noise! Like a ninja it silently jumped into the understory and charged in the other direction making almost no sound whatsoever. In the exact direction I was heading!

I wasted no time. Kept the bear spray out and the Go pro rolling. Through my panting you can hear my panic. Interdispersed with long periods of dead silence where I stop to listen for the bear. BECUSE IT IS FOLLOWING ALONG SIDE ME 40-50 FEET AWAY IN THE SHRUBBY UNDERSTORY! UNSEEN!!! I can tell because every few seconds it steps on a twig. It is keeping good pace with me. I have already broken one cardinal rule and approached this bear. I really want to break the other cardinal rule and run from it. But I repress that fear, although I am walking rather briskly. After a minute I stop and decide to bring this situation to a close. I grab some rocks and sticks and start throwing it into the forest where I last heard the noise. After a few minutes of lobbing rocks, sticks and insults into the shrubs I listen with every fiber of my being. Nothing. Silence. My antagonist is gone. I tell myself this. It’s the only way I can continue down the trail without the constant feeling of being chased by Freddy Krueger and Jason from Friday the 13th. If you have ever been in an actual encounter such as this, that is the closest thing I can say to describe it quickly. I wake from this nightmare by telling myself the bear is gone. I also sing Neil Diamond songs while I hike. In perfect key, tempo and impersonation. Reflecting on how I really prefer the 1968-1972 era Neil. He was a poet and an artist back then. A real metropolitan Jazz singer turned street poet. I also have convinced myself the bears especially hate Neil Diamond. And right now, my nerves are shot and I need to calm myself down. 

‘What a shit-bear, trying to shake people down for trail mix. Really got under my skin,’ I am thinking this as I am really belting out a verse from Neil’s masterpiece, relaxing somewhat as I stroll quickly down the trail. After all, I am working right now. And there are six baby boomers and a five foot sherpa, all heavily laden with backpacking equipment who are depending on me to make lunch for them in about an hour. And they are somewhere ahead of me on the trail. And so is the next part of my funny story for my bosses. 

I hike for nearly thirty minutes reflecting on the bear encounter. Praying the Gopro footage is usable. It’s not. Ultimately this will lead to me upgrading my camera system. I am now using two $2000 lenses and a full frame $1400 body and a $2000 full frame body. All of the money I make goes to this camera setup for a few years. And it’s worth every penny.

I finally catch up to two guests. They are smiling and have their packs off on the ground when I walk up. 

“Good morning ladies, how is the hike going for you?” I ask. 

“You are going to need to give some medical attention to one of those guys from that big guy group we have been seeing. That one heart transplant guy seems to be having a heart attack and looks like he is dying.”

I stop in my tracks. My brain goes into ‘work mode’. My wilderness medical training instantly starts going over checklists and protocol. The ladies say he is slowly walking ahead of them. They had dropped their packs to wait and tell me about this. They smile saying they have been waiting a long time for me in an unspoken question of “Just what were you doing back at camp?”

I instruct the women to grab packs and catch up to me. I quickly relate that there is a bear in these woods and he or she is feisty. They are wide eyed and instantly energized.

I sprint hike down the trail and in seconds whip around a corner to an ultra surreal sight:

Three men standing just off the trail. They are in their 30’s-40’s.  

Two wearing backpacks. They stand staring silently at the third man. 

He is staring into the forest. 

This man is grey in skin tone and his hands are three to four times the normal size of  any man’s hands his size. He looks like a black and white movie of a man wearing giant Mickey Mouse like gloves. I cannot overstate how disconcerting the immediate appearance of the situation was. He looked like a corpse. And I could tell by his staring into the woods with his buddies silently watching that they all three thought he was breathing his last few breaths.

I am taken aback but still walk right up to them and drop my pack to get out my first aid kit and satellite phone. I don’t normally bring sat phones on backpacking trips. Only if there are old people, or known medical issues like coronary history or something of the sort. And this being a boomer trip, I knew everyone would be old, and most likely several would have heart trouble. Turns out the heart problem would be from an early 40’s man not on our trip.

“How are you doing? How is everything going? I have been quickly briefed on whats happening—but could you please fill me in on any and all pertinent information. I assume you guys want help? Right?” I ask as politely as I can while grabbing my rubber gloves and then send one arm into my backpack in a deep, powerfully penetrating grab to locate and extract my first aid kit which is somewhere deep in my 75 pound bag. 

The grey puffy handed man responds slowly and in a very low tone. 

“Well. Yeah. I guess we need help.”

There is a lot of talking with thick accents. Although they are from Minnesota or Wyoming, they sound like they are from the South. I am from Kentucky. And I know what southern dialect sounds like. And there are certain parts of nearly every state where people talk like they are from ‘the country’. And these five or six guys sounded like they drank cheap beer every night after working in their fields. And they looked like it. 

I liked them. They were good people. I respected what they were doing. Here is the story. We had run into them for several days. Hop scotching in front of and then behind one another as we hiked. We had even stayed at the same camp one night. So, we actually kind of know these guys. They are all close friends from grades school or high school. Traveling here on a bucket list wish from a dying man. A man who had one or more major heart surgeries, transplants, etc. Heavily medicated, grey, crazily puffy handed, and content to die in this beautiful place he had wanted to come visit. Its hard not to blame him. I assured him he was going to be OK. I was totally lying. I had no idea what the hell was going on. And he did in fact look like he was about to die. But you can never say that to someone, and you really shouldn’t even think it. 

I instructed him to lay down. Put his feet above his head. Drink as much water as possible and take deep breaths. This can cure almost any hiking related problem. But we were dealing with a far more intense situation here.

His friends and the now patient related a long and disturbing health history of this man. I could tell they were all great guys. Life-long friends.

I checked his heart rate. Seemed normal. A little elevated. I could understand why. 

I immediately called my office. When they answered it sounded like an office party. Music, people talking, laughing, and a wonderful office staff member recognizes my voice and listens to me as I speak as quickly and clearly as possible. You never know when these phones will loose connection. She repeats one or two statements back to me to confirm what I am saying. The room behind her goes silent. Murmurs in the background now. A more senior office staff member grabs the phone. I quickly relate the situation including symptoms and medications being taken. She says that senior medical office staff are looking this up online.

We all wait in that wilderness. These ancient mountains made up of even older rock vaulted up from miles below above the lodgepole forest. We all held our breath silently as well. Waiting for the crackling noise from the Sat Phone to hear from civilization what this poor man’s fate would be. 

The puffy handed man listening most intently of all.

The Glacier Guides founder, Randy Gaynor’s chipper voice breaks the silence on the phone. I am shocked by his cheerfulness. 

“Hey Jeremy, sounds like you guys are having an exciting time out there.”

“Yes, we are. Thanks for looking up stuff online for us. What did you find?”

“Oh yeah, well, it seems this medicine has a common side effect of causing swelling of the hands and other parts of the body. So remove all rings, jewelry, shoes, belts as needed. Make sure he is stabile otherwise and ask him not to exert himself on the way out.”

A huge sigh of relief. No one will be dying today on the Logging Lake Trail. 

We thanked the office profusely.

The man continued to lounge on the ground for a while. A larger group of his friends had taken his backpack forward to camp and were coming back to hike with him as a group. These two guys and the puffy handed man were slowly hiking at their leisure just waiting for them. 

I instructed them to continue. I would go attend to my guests, set up our camp and continue to monitor him throughout the day, night and tomorrow morning. We were staying at the same backcountry campsite that night. 

I would even allow him to call his wife and or family to let them know he was safe. But mainly because I just wanted him to be able to say he loved them just one more time before we hiked out. You never know. I then thought to make the same call to my family. It had been an intense day for me. You never know. 

These boomers were amazing. 

We had the best trip. 

There was Jerry, a mechanical engineer and hilarious character. 

There was Cecilia Mink. A Southwestern Rodeo princess who was a very successful independent sales rep for pharmaceutical companies.

There was Rock Dawg and Old Blue. They are their own story altogether. A wonder and inspiration to behold. Mothers with grown children and husbands. Best friends from West or East Virginia. They took up backpacking a few years ago. Each trip they told me about were the funniest backpacking stories I have ever heard. I loved them. 

Then there was a solo female boomer. A director of ops of some sort from the southwest.

And then there were a few random characters on the trail we would constantly run into. Other than the puffy handed man crew, there were a few couples. Including a young woman (by young I mean in her 40’s—my age, and not a boomer) hiking with her mother. A woman my entire group was obsessed with hooking me up with. And that too is a whole other story. 

We awoke our last morning refreshed. I am always sad to hike out of the backcountry. And on the great trips borderline depressed. I shouldn’t get like this. Because the trip is NOT over.

On the way out, we even find Jackelope Scat! This rare and obscure animal rarely leaves its scat where humans can find it. 

Hiking out the last day I always try to keep the group somewhat together. This is for several reasons. We have all bonded and its good to finish as a group. But also, to facilitate a conversation about wilderness, taking time to visit it and how important it is in our lives. I know it sounds cheesy and naive. But it is not. It is very serious. I tell people how nearly every culture with a recorded history has long rich narratives of how people go to these wild places for healing, for inspiration, recharging and a whole host of other reasons. It is our birthright. We NEED it! I talk about primitive cultures who are connected with their land and how much more mental health stability they have. And I stress that “for whatever it means to you—you have come from civilization. A place of traffic lights, work, bills, responsibilities, trains, family, extended family, and a whole lot more. You have come to a wild place. A place of nearly untainted pristine untouched wilderness. Leave some of that civilized emotional baggage here. And take back some of this wilderness with you. Remember it. Return. Repeat.”

Most people listen silently to my spiel. Most of the time I start to choke up and feel humiliated. Some others react the same way as well. I give them all time to digest this as we walk back to the parking lot in a loose group encouraging everyone to be quite. Not only can I relax and not have to lecture or talk anymore. But it also gives a chance to look for wildlife. And that distraction allows me to deploy one of my favorite “tricks” as a guide which I prepped the day before at camp. 

As we stroll along the trail in silence thinking of civilizations whoas and our newfound inner peace a guests spots a deer. I of course see it. But I am immune to their charms unless someone else points it out to me that they want to look at them. I have seen SO many deer. They are as exciting as a lodgepole pine, which is to say that a single grain of rice is exciting. 

Once the boomers point out the deer I recognize my opportunity and I go into magician/ninja mode. My guests don’t even really know what is happening. What they see is this:

Someone points out the deer, and we walk past it. I gather everyone into a tight circle and point out one or two features of the anatomy of the deer and talk about what it is eating. I am standing directly behind the guests. I ask them if anyone has ever been this close to a deer and if anyone has any entertaining stories about the deer. I stand close with them and silently listen from behind while we spend time with a beautiful and majestic creature. After a few minutes, we turn around and start to walk down the trail. I carefully step over a large rock in the trail only to have someone just behind me point out this very strange and very prominent piece of scat. I whirl around with excitement seemingly shocked!

And begin to tell everyone about the rare and peculiar “Jackelope” who is responsible for this little treasure atop the rock. I talk of the strange anatomy of the “Jackelope” (Small rabbit like body with a small set of antlers) and I talk of it’s eating habits. Mainly, how it eats choice fresh greens and berries and its digestive tract is so clean you can actually eat it for survival. I follow up with a story of natives and prospectors having their lives saved by eating these nutritious trail treasure. You should by now guess where this is going… Keep in mind, I am NOT this ‘type’ of guide usually. I pull this stunt typically at the end of my trips for a reason. They have just heard me talk non stop for days about animals, edible items from the forest, native and cultural history AND I give people sources for nearly everything I say. So I am basically a vetted walking library to these people. And I haven’t pulled any shenanigans on them. I then say, “In fact this feces is so clean you can safely handle it.” 

I pick it up. People start screaming. I act as if they are over reacting and to their shear terror and disgust I raise the “scat” to my nose and smell it. 

People start to gag and recoil.

This is my favorite part!

I say I have never eaten it, and I have always been curious. At this point mothers race towards me to snatch it from my hands and other people simply emit a long monotone shriek of some sort. They ALL watch as I open my mouth and take a bite. I report its not bad, kind of nutty. And then I stare at everyone for a few seconds and revel in what I have created before telling them the truth.

The truth is I have been carrying around a Tigerbar for the entire trip. This specific type of granola bar works best, but I have used others also with success. The key is, it must be malleable and be dark brown in color. See appendix 2 for a lengthy instructive ‘how to’

That morning, after checking on the puffy handed man and before cleaning up breakfast dishes I had gotten this granola bar out and formed it into the most perfect sculptured fake scat you have ever seen (keep in mind I have an MFA in studio arts and was a college art instructor for ten years). Complete with actual tiny raisin berries and small chunks of cacao that looked like some sort of wild animal leftovers. I placed it into my ziplock bag I used for trailmix. When the entire group was looking at the deer and talking about their personal stories for just those few moments I snuck away from the group and ran down the trail 20-30 feet. I saw the rock and knew it would be a prominent location (which was also semi clean—cleaner than the dusty trail anyway—I always try to place it on a rock) and then I ran back to the group without a sound. To do this you must be one part magician, and one part ninja (and a lot parts cooky). So when we turned around to start hiking, the entire group KNEW I hadn’t planted it. They KNEW it was real. And they KNEW their guide was eating shit in front of them, safely. If that isn’t magic I don’t know what is!

EVERYONE slaps me when I reveal the trick and show them the half uneaten Tigerbar and demonstrate how I made it. This is generally a moment where people need to drop their packs and regain their composure. All except Jerry, the Engineer were duped. He just laughed the entire time and before I told everyone it was a joke I looked into his eyes and he laughingly said, “Jeremy, you are so full of shit!”

How can you not have a life changing experience on a backpacking trip like this? These types of days made me a better person. Hell, I think I can safely say they made all of us better people. And it was everything combined that had facilitated that. The wilderness, the animals, the mountains, the lakes, our fellow hikers, what we discovered about ourselves out here, what we left behind out in those woods. That is why we do these horribly miserable and difficult trips. That is how the “magic” happens. And if you do it even remotely correct. And you reflect on it. That WILL happen. Every single time!

We all walked out of the woods a little changed. On the really great trips like this one even more so.

We made it to the parking lot and van in good spirits. We feasted on a massive picnic which had been packed in a cooler days ago and left for us. We then drove out of the park and back to West Glacier (Of course we stopped at the Polebridge Bakery and store and got some decadent gluten free cookies and huckleberry bearclaws).

When we sadly rolled into guide headquarters (sad but happy), we learned from the office girls that the puffy handed man crew had stopped by to tell the office thanks for helping out. They also commended me and my assistance and left a nice sum of money for me as a token of appreciation. 

I even took pause that afternoon to reflect on how lucky I was to be able to do this. I thought long and hard about the importance of sharing these experiences with other people. To help create this for others. I truly believe it is one of the most personally noble and rewarding things you can do for someone.

Often I think about this trip. And others like it.

I think about being out there with those wonderful people.

I remember the funny stories.

I strain myself to recall even more details of that inspirational solitude I found there. 

And I spend an unbelievable amount of time thinking about going back to Logging Lake to find that black bear and bear spray the shit out it. 

Appendix

1. “The pug caused it all?” No, of course not. It was the pugs owner. It was a string of things which actually caused this. We will never know of course. But what I think happened was this: The ‘pug couple’ walking reported seeing black bear legs walking along side them obscured by shrubs and they could hear bear huffing. We walk up a few seconds later. The bear is all pissed and maybe feels like we are with the other group and trying to trap it. Or its just all amped on adrenaline because it was just protecting its territory from the pug. It is full of rage hormones and I stroll up and think “What the hell is going on here?” My fiancé walks up and the bear thinks, “Well if I have to fight my way out of this I think that little skinny one is the least dangerous one of these creatures to mess with. So here goes…”

2. Jackelope Scat Finding & Sculpting Methodology

Key components to successfully pull this off:

You must find the right granola bar and bits to form in it. Match local perfectly (this is not hard).

You must seize the perfect opportunity to plant said fake scat.

Be a ninja.

Be a magician.

Let THEM point it out and see it.

Build up to touching it.

Then, build up to smelling.

Then to licking, then biting. 

You may be able to employ a member of the group who knows you are full of shit into taking a bite to further disgust and thrill your hiking mates.

Warnings:

Rocks can become lodged in fake scat, be careful when placing it and when eating it.

Watch out for mothers with children present. You never know what they may do if they think you are demonstrating to their children it is OK to eat shit. I am not joking about this warning. It happened!

Biggest warning: DO NOT CONFUSE YOUR FAKE PILE WITH A REAL PILE! If you are TOO ninja/magician you can fool yourself. I once ran down the trail 70-100 yards to plant a scat pile. There was scat everywhere on this trail. After I planted it, then I couldn’t find it! I didn’t realize how far I had gone down the trail and found several piles that looked just like mine! It took me a minute and I had to make everybody drop packs for me to actually find and identify mine. Once again, I am not joking about this warning, it happened! FYI, I successfully found my real pile of fake scat and the joke played out flawlessly. I did not handle or eat actual scat.

Never leave your fake scat on a rock with real scat. That is just gross.