Bear on the Trail

Our campsite was in the shade of trees above but not an incredibly wooded place. When we woke up it seemed early enough to give us time to pack up and start our hike. I reached down to check my phone and was alarmingly surprised as it read 10:30, it must be wrong. Nate checked his and reported the same time. Drat! We had overslept. Anyone that camps know that it is a miracle to sleep in past eight and if you have to backpack it is best to start early. We ended up getting to the trail and starting our hike at noon; not an idea situation. However, being speedy hikers, we were not concerned about the distance and set out anyways. Very few things could delay us now. Because, Yoho! I mean, because it’ll be a while before either of us in Banff again and we were confident we had enough time. So, Nate, Moab (Nates’ dog), and I headed into the Canadian Rockies.

We had a fast pace going, probably around three miles an hour, and the beginning of the hike was under the cover of trees and fairly flat so easy enough. One of the unique things we came across are these birds called grey jays which Nate identified. They are very friendly birds and are known for landing on people if you hold out food for them. At one point we had the opportunity and it worked flawlessly. A little thing but still fun. A few miles in we came out of the woods and upon the ink pots.

These are clear emerald pools that aren’t particularly boiling hot but are warmed by an underground source and bubbles coming up from the bottom. It was a very peaceful place with the mountains in the background so we decided to take some time to replenish and walk around for a bit before heading back on the trail.

The pace remained quick as Nate lead when we started across the open subalpine meadows. There were a few bridges along the way made of two 9 x 9 pieces of wood with a hand rail on one side. Moab would go over some of the shorter ones no problem, but when we got to one that was six feet off the water and probably thirty feet long, he froze up. Instead he thought crossing the shallow white water might be a better idea. Nate and Moab “argued” back and forth and eventually Nate had to literally drag him across the bridge. I think Moab would have made it, but may have been taken downstream a little bit and would be exposed to the cold and maybe hypothermia.

Occasionally, we would hike through damp parts of the trail, but nothing too crazy for our boots to hold up as long as we stayed on our feet. The real concern in the valley would be the threat of a moose, bear, or even wolf among other animals; we kept our eyes out and made enough noise to alert animals to prevent from surprising them.

It was quite a beautiful hike with knee high grasses on both sides, a small river a hundred yards to the left and the pristine not-yet-snow-covered mountains a few miles on our right and left. A couple miles later we entered back into the woods for the rest of our hike until we reached Leullen Lake. We still had about four miles to go and it was close to three by now. At one point on the trail it turns to the right and heads up hill instead of following the river as we had expected per the contour lines on the trail map. The original trail clearly continued to follow the river but for some reason it was blocked and new cairns were made to follow up a rocky, dry creek bed. In later research I found that the original trail had been washed out. At the time we did not want to see a hill. Nate called BS as we headed up hill instead of following the flats. It sapped out all of our energy. Hindsight is a lovely thing when you can see that staying up the night before (killing 26 craft beers) may not be helping you finish the last three miles of the hike but it was great fun.

We sloshed on through a false hope of reaching camp and climbed higher on the hill dragging feet and slowing down to a more realistic pace. Nate was slightly ahead with Moab off leash wondering in between for a good portion of this part until we took a break to rejuvenate and finish off the day. 
Once we made it off the hill and back near the water it was flat hiking, at least per the map. The trail was wide enough so we could walk two wide with Moab between us. It was after four and we had a little more than a mile to go which made it feasible to reach camp before sunset and enjoy the site before it turned dark and cold. As we rounded a corner, I saw it. Except in my tired-delusional state it took me a brief moment before what actually stood before us. About forty yards in front of us was a large grizzly bear, as wide as the trail and probably four feet tall, on all four legs. When I first spotted, I actually saw the panda from the movie Kung-Fu Panda as it was that big but after a brief moment realized it was a 1000 pound grizzly on the trail. I stopped dead in my tracks as Nate questioned why I stopped. He had been looking down at the time as I let out a shallow, “grizzly.” He was in doubt until he looked up. Nate later recalled that “he was amazed and excited at first because I hadn’t seen a grizzly this close in person and for me that is a special moment that not everyone gets to experience. Then, after that short moment of joy the reality set in that this animal may not be as excited or “amazed” to see us.” Standing forty yards from the beast, we locked eyes and all froze for a moment. We felt like the bear was assessing us and once he realized we were not a threat to him, he put his head back down and carried on towards us. Moab looked at the bear and then up at Nate like, “what is that?” After a moment we began to back up slowly and up the trail we had just come. Don’t run. We turned away on the trail so we could see the path and looked over our shoulders to see the bear was following behind, but not gaining ground.

Once we rounded the corner and out of sight we picked up the pace and had both cans of bear mace locked and loaded. The odd thing was that Moab was not cooperating with Nate, lagging behind, and acting very strange. He also had never been so close or seen such a beast like that before so he may have either been curious or a bit shocked. Nate quickly put the leash on him and pulled him as quickly as we could hike. We were a good seventy yards past the turn and stopped for a moment. The grizzly rounded the corner and we knew we had to come up with a better plan as he came right towards us, still at a walking pace, however. (This was a bit of a relief knowing he was not charging us or threatening us but still not time to take the situation lightly and hangout on the trail to shake hands.) We did not want to tempt it anymore as we continued to walk the opposite way of camp we frantically but in an oddly calm manner conversed plans of action. I had proposed cutting off trail to the right and down the hill to the water to possibly cross it if needed but Nate suggested that we cut left off the trail and head up hill into thick bushes and coniferous trees. He had remembered a pretty steep part off the trail that we passed a couple hundred yards back and was hoping that we could see the bear pass from up there so we could be comfortable with continuing our hike. We took option two. We had rounded another corner shortly after we saw the grizzly continue towards us so we had a great chance to move quickly up the hill and out of his path. At this point, we hiked the fastest we had all trip and about fifty yards up. If the bear was coming for us, we were not going to out run it anyways. I tossed my pack on the ground and bear mace to Nate as I quickly climbed at pine tree to get a view of the trail below and hopefully the bear. Nate was on the ground and remembers, “Holding both bear maces in my hands; kind of made me feel like a badass as if I was wielding dual handguns or something. I had Moab sit at my side with a bit of confused look on his face but I was confident he would be my third line of defense if needed.” It was the hastiest climb I have done but was careful enough to hold on securely as the occasional branch would break from under me. About twenty-five feet up I looked down and concisely saw the bear walk past on the trail, of course communicating this all to Nate below. Did you see the bear? Did you see the bear? Did he pass? Did he pass? Hoping to get a bit of relief. I had only seen him for a split second but did not see any branches or movement coming towards us as a climbed back down. We cut parallel to the trail bushwhacking for a bit and then down the hill to the trail to realize the trail was a lot closer than we had expected it to be. With roughly a mile to go, we were now running on adrenaline as the situation had provide a boost of energy as would any other life threatening situation. It was a tense few moments as you fear the worst might happen and I would have loved to get a picture but it was a much too serious situation to mess around. We were ecstatic that it did not want anything to do with us and that we had not encountered it at a closer distance. It did not take us long to make it to camp as we followed the path the bear had just come from and down to the lake. The sun had set over the mountains but it was still light enough to take in the natural beauty you can only appreciate after hiking eleven miles and meeting a bear on the trail.

After checking out the lake a little and debating whether to camp on top of a wood platform or at a real campsite, we finally decided on the campsite. Nate was freezing for some reason so he was throwing on all of his layers. I was standing up on a bench to change into some warmer clothes and wobbled it a little bit when the can of bear mace tumbled off. A quick ‘tss’ sprayed a minute amount of bear mace into the air and of course as we both looked at it, the mace made us cough for a brief bit (even though we both knew what it was before looking). Only a fitting end to the day would do. We quickly recapped the bear maces and prepared for the night by setting up camp, cooking soup (heavy but very good on a cold night), and gathered what we could for a fire.

The correspondence went somewhat like this: 
Nate: You want to go setup the tent and I’ll get the fire going?
Robbie: Nooooo how bout we both go set up the tent and then set up the fire.
Nate: Oh right, the whole bear thing, yea that’s probably a good plan haha.

Neither of us really wanted to come face to face with a bear by ourselves.

The fire pit and its area were picked bone dry from the other campers and fisherman that had come before us all season so it was tough sledding. An ax would have been a big help but near impossible to carry the eleven miles. 
Nate had been tending the fire while I made dinner but everything was pretty wet as it had been on the ground so the best we could get were small flair ups from twigs and such every once in a while. We had a few logs used for sitting on but had no way to get them cut up into sizable pieces to burn without smothering our fire. However, we did have a hatchet so we could strip off pieces of the logs and keep the fire going just enough. We would take turns picking at the log until we either got tired or our backs sore. It was getting tough to stay out by the ‘fire’ as it was in the 20s to 30s but eventually we found a solution (and no, it was not cuddling). In order to get more sizable pieces of the driest log we could find, we took the hatchet and hit it into the log about two inches from the side of the log. Another log, that had two offshoots and used for handles, was then used to drive the hatchet deeper into the log and split it. It was pretty damn effective and soon we had a raging fire going. It was an incredible feeling at that point. Throughout this and more so once we had the fire going, we passed a bottle of cheap Canadian whiskey that we had picked up in town that morning because, well, when it Canada. We did not have a traditional chaser as all we had to drink was water. However, I always carry some Haribo gummy bears on hikes and trips. These worked great to combat the ‘tasty’ whiskey which was gone fast enough. It was a good thing we only got a small bottle with the hike out the next day. One heck of a day.

It was an incredibly experience looking back on the day and I believe we did everything right which helped prevent an even scarier situation from happening. Next time I may even be brave enough to get a picture or two.