I have been hiking in the mountains since 1996 and I have been fortunate to see a wide array of wildlife. Interestingly, for the first decade or so, I never saw a bear, be it a grizzly bear or a black bear. Then if I saw a one, it was while driving. Most of these early bear sightings were not captured in a photograph.
Things changed when my family traveled to Glacier National Park in Montana for our summer hiking trip in 2011, rather than vacation in Kananaskis as we normally did. Our plan was to hike each day with Nic and Sam, who were 12 and 9 years old respectively. We tried to choose a range of hikes both in terms of length and elevation, as well as in terms of the kind of views we would see. Day one had us driving to Many Glaciers and hiking the Iceberg Lake trail. It was a beautiful day. While we thought we had a pretty early start, the trail was very busy, certainly more busy than we have grown used to in the Canadian Rockies. It was so crowded that when we reached the lake, there was no place to sit and have a snack. The trip back was frustrating as we were constantly saying "hi", or "on your left", or "excuse me", etc. It's not that I don't enjoy seeing other hikers on trails but this was insanely busy with people and dogs. Our focus became about moving in and around people rather than on family story-telling and taking in the views. Fred and I have always had a rule with the boys that Mom and Pa are the bread and they can be whatever other part of the sandwich they want to be - in other words, they must be in the middle of our family line. But on this day we broke the rule because about 50 m from the parking lot (we could SEE the cars), our youngest asked if he could skip ahead. While there were a ton of people right behind us, for once there was no one immediately in front. Fred and I gave Sam our permission and so off Sam went skipping down the last little hill to the parking lot. The next time I looked up, I saw the largest, and I mean the biggest grizzly I have ever seen looking right into Sam's face while chewing and Sam, in his red shirt was about 1 m from the bear with his eyes downcast and his hand right in by his chest pointing at the bear with one finger. I have only felt this level of indescribable panic one other time in my life, and that is when we "lost" Sam at his brother's hockey game. In hindsight, it is fascinating to see how that level of fear impacts your decision-making abilities. Fred and I did everything wrong and Sam did everything right. Sam kept his eyes cast downward and slowly backed around the big bush he had come around to come back up the hill to us. I on the other hand, yelled for him to run to the parking lot once he was around the bush and out of sight of the bear. My husband asked if he should let the banger go to which I practically screamed "no" because it might scare the bear toward us or toward Sam. Sam went through the first parking lot and when he saw a park ranger he told him there was a bear on the trail and his parents and brother couldn't get down. What amazed me is the ranger did nothing. He didn't help Sam and he didn't walk to the end of the parking lot and look up to see the bear and where people were on the trail. I was in super panic mode because I was terrified for Nic who told me afterward that I was digging my nails into his arm. And I was worried Sam would not stay put but rather come back up the trail to find us. I just about lost it when Fred said "do you want to get the camera out and get a picture because we probably won't get this close to a bear again." The bear paid us no mind and after what seemed like hours but likely was just a few minutes, the bear meandered off the trail and out of sight. We found Sam by our car, about four parking lots over from the trailhead. As expected, there was lots of excited chatter from us as we all piled into the car. After driving for about a minute though, I asked Fred to pull over. I got out of the car, walked around to the back of the car and pretty much collapsed - shaking and crying uncontrollably. If that bear had decided Sam was a threat or an irritant or whatever and gone for Sam, there was nothing Fred and I could have done to stop the bear. We all have very clear memories of this day. I remember the trail, the hill, the bush, the parking lot, Sam's little red shirt and blue shorts, his little pointer figure out from his chest trying to give us a heads up that there was a bear right there. Sam's most vivid memory is the horrifically revolting stench of the bear's breath.
Since 2011, I have seen many bears. In 2016 alone, I encountered 12 grizzlies over a two month period just in Kananaskis. Most of these 2016 sightings were while driving but some were while hiking. Interestingly, other than a female grizzly with her two cubs up at Aster Lake, the encounters we have had were on hikes where the trail was super crowded with people. I read the Hike Alberta FB page and it seems most people believe if the trail is crowded, they are less likely to have a bear encounter. This has not been our experience. I hunch when there are so many people, the bears have less opportunity to move through an area unnoticed. I am happy to say, none of my bear encounters on a trail have been with a bear in an aggressive or defensive manner. My husband, two sons and I have walked right by a mom and her cub, causing her to stand on her back legs to see who was moving through the area. We have walked past a grizzly lying down on its back in a meadow and who completely ignored us and focused on cleaning their paw. My husband and I did have a real scare though on a popular scrambling trek when a grizzly came at us from above as we were traversing the slope, sending scree crashing all around us. The bear was running full tilt toward us and of course, because there were lots of people on the trail, we had folks screaming at us "there's a bear!" and therefore making the situation worse. About 20 feet above us, the bear made his own switch back. What we realized later is the grizzly was simply trying to get down to the first lake in amongst a whole bunch of people. Scary for sure (I yelled "yo bear" for the next three hours) - and did the bear act like a bear, yes.
Does this mean I won't come face to face with a bear acting defensively or aggressively? Not necessarily. It is about being as prepared as you can be, taking as many precautions that you can take and respecting we are in their home.
