I visited Glacier
National Park, where there are very few Glaciers remaining, but there
are still a lot of bighorn sheep. At Logan Pass in the sunset, we
met our first trio of resting bighorns, complete with an old visitor
explicating to the camera-wielding crowd at the overlook that the one
with the more robust set of horns was a ram and the others were ewes.
He was as confident as he was incorrect—all three animals were
rams, the one with the biggest horns being the eldest (picture #2). A few days
later, my friend Emma and I observed some real ewes and lambs in Two
Medicine Lake campground, making their rounds and eating scraps from
fire pits (habituated, unfortunately). Ewes have thinner, straighter
horns than rams and are frequently mistaken for mountain goats (picture #3).
Emma and I became
friends a decade ago, when we were both seasonal park rangers at
Yellowstone National Park. We reconvened this August in her home
town of Missoula after I flew from overheated Florida. For our
second day in Glacier National Park, we had a backcountry camping
permit for Poia Lake in the Many Glacier district. I packed and
repacked my backpack more fastidiously than I ever had before, trying
to bring exactly what I needed for the overnight trip and not an
ounce more. Final revisions took place at the trailhead. Despite
all my efforts, the pack still weighed over 40 pounds. I used to be
more cavalier about carrying heavy backpacks. But since March, I've
had a herniated disc in my lower back, which causes sciatica in my
right leg. Sitting gives me the most trouble, and I took my turn driving Going to the Sun Road on the way over, which involves both sitting and operating the pedals with my right foot.
I had a tingling feeling in my right foot for the entire
6.5 mile hike to Poia Lake, which was mostly uphill. We hit the
trail later than planned, at 2:30 PM, and took the hike at a
manageable pace, which turned out to be about one mile per hour. The
first third of the trail took us through thickets of thimbleberries
and huckleberries, a bear's Garden of Eden (or Eatin'). And indeed,
we stepped over plenty of bear skat, and I spotted a bear's
claw-marking on a tree.
The trail wound and meandered, seemingly
endlessly, mostly uphill and sometimes downhill, through conifer
woods, talus slopes, past a hidden lake, and over the Swiftcurrent
Ridge. We started at 5,000 feet above sea level, ascended 1,200 feet
to the ridge, and descended a few hundred to Poia Lake. For the last
two miles of the hike, it always seemed like our destination was just
around the corner. I wish that I could say that this was all fun,
but I became increasingly concerned about when or if we would reach
our destination.
It was almost 8:30
PM, which is 10:30 PM in my home time zone. We stopped on a ridge,
orange lichens dotting the rocks, the light fading and breeze
blowing; the sun had already set. Downhill to the right, the sound
of rushing water, a cascading stream.
“We can bivouac
here,” I suggested.
Emma recalled the
hike 734 map and guide we had been following, which said ,
“The trail then drops down quickly with a steep
slope into the Kennedy Creek drainage where Poia Lake resides. The
creek playfully exits the lake on your final approach.”...“That
sounds like where we are now.”
“That could be
anywhere,” I said. Emma encouraged me to keep hiking forward.
In less than fifty
feet, as I reentered conifer woods, I said, “There's a sign up
here.” Five paces closer. “It says that we have arrived at the
backcountry campsites.”
The first task upon
entering the backcountry camping area was to stop in the cooking area
and raise the bear bags. Right after we took off our packs, a
feeling of extreme fatigue came over me. My legs wavered and almost
buckled. Luckily, I regained my footing. The hike was only one of
many factors leading to this state of affairs. Traveling is a lot of
work, from getting one's life in order prior to the trip, to packing
and repacking, to looking for places to dispose of greywater at
Avalanche Creek Campground, to taking too long to break down camp, to
driving Going to the Sun Road behind a rental sedan operated by a
European who probably hadn't driven a vehicle in years, to waiting
for the backcountry safety orientation video at the Many Glacier
Visitor Center to finish. Furthermore, I'm an early bird with an
internal clock still on Eastern Time (whereas Emma is a night owl on
Mountain Time). I scrambled to do all my camp tasks—tent, bear bag,
etc—as efficiently as possible, fearing that if I took a break I would fall asleep and not awaken until morning.
In the morning, Poia
Lake had quite a bit of wave action for such a small body of water,
bordered by barren peaks with patches of snow. I painted the scene
in water color, the field medium of artist-explorers of yore. I had
deliberated at the trailhead over whether to bring my field
sketchbook and ultimately ruled in its favor. Emma, wearing pink
flip flops, slipped and fell near the lake, acquiring a cut on her
foot to add to blisters from hiking (in hiking boots). I felt like
all the wilderness adventure camps I partook in as a youth had been
validated, with their warnings against flip flops. Nevertheless,
Emma is still bringing the pink flip flops next time she goes
camping.
Our first encounter
with a black bear occurred around noon. We were talking to a
thru-hiker and eating PBJs in the backcountry cooking area, all
packed up and soon to start the hike out. I saw something to the
left out of the corner of my eye.
“There is a big
animal there,” I said, looked again, and saw a big furry butt with
a small tail walking away. “It's a bear.”
The adult black bear
had walked in our direction down the trail past the backcountry
campsites, reached the junction by the cooking area, apparently saw
us three humans less than 25 feet away, and turned left
(perpendicular to us). It casually walked away down the trail
towards the lake, turned right, and disappeared into the bush, just
before I could train my camera on it. Had this bear found food
scraps here before, and was it returning to look for more at the very
time of day when there were least likely to be people around? Or was
the timing a coincidence? Wild animals commonly use human trails
just to get around, so either explanation is plausible.
In the trek through
the berry patches, Emma was especially consistent in talking to alert
bears of our presence; you WANT them to know you're around, so you
don't startle them and trigger a defensive reaction. Saying “Hey
bear, bear, bear,” over and over quickly gets repetitive, so I sang
“Downbound Train,” “Knockin' on Heavens Door,” the theme song
from the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show, the
theme song from the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon show, and recited
as much of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as I could
remember. I had the tingling feeling in my right foot on the
downhill trek, too, and Emma walked on her foot injuries, and we were
tired, but we were armed with bear spray.
One mile from the
finish line, we stopped for a moment, and Emma, facing me, said,
“There's a bear behind you.” I stood motionless, just in case
the bruin was RIGHT behind me. I slowly looked over my shoulder, by
which time the bear was gone. It had been a young black bear,
perhaps 50 feet away, came out of the brush to give us a look,
listen, and sniff, then continued through the brush.
Even without most of
the glaciers, Glacier National Park is still a wonderland of
mountains, valleys, lakes—I took a paddleboard out on Two Medicine
Lake—conifers, and big mammals. The wolves of Glacier are elusive,
and wildlife tours more often train their spotting scopes on bears
and mountain goats. I wanted to see a mountain goat, but it was not
to be.
Driving out of the park, one of our last stops was Goat Lick
Overlook, where mountain goats come down from higher elevations to
lick cliffs with deposits of salt and other minerals. (Electrolytes,
it's what mountain goats crave!) Sadly, we saw no goats today.
An interpretive sign explained that, built for snow and cold, the
mountain goats may face heat stress on their quest for minerals at
these lower, hotter, elevations, and they sprawl on patches of snow
to cool down. Therefore, I'm not the only mammal pushing their
limits in Glacier. I got some good photos of bighorn sheep on this
trip, but no mountain goats and no bears. The bear encounters live
on in memory, and the glaciers live on in historic photos.
Image credits: Non-selfie photos with Ross in them by Emma Pfeiffer
Other photos and painting by Ross Wood Studlar
©2025 to respective creators
Shepard Glacier historic photos by US Geological Survey
Interpretive signs by National Park Service
