Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

trevbo wrote:What happened with your bear spray? Tell us more!
So I've been travelling a lot recently - but need to pick this back up!

After our late night at Hole-in-the-Wall taking pictures of the stars and admiring the milky way, we weren't in any particular hurry to get moving. We also had another relatively short day - heading up to Boulder Pass.

Having had a relatively clear night, and a pre-trip forecast of clearing smoke, we were hoping for clearer views. Unfortunately, it was not to be as the smoke was rapidly filling the valley and obscuring Thunderbird before we even got out of the campground. We hiked up and out of the Hole-in-the-Wall cirque with a plan of grabbing lunch somewhere up around Boulder Pass, and made pretty good time. We had heard stories and reports of a sow with cubs in the area, so were keeping a pretty close watch, but for the third trip in a row, we never saw a bear.

We grabbed a quick snack by one of the few streams still flowing into the cirque - you can see in the photo that the smoke was getting bad enough that you Custer was almost obscured directly above us.
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We continued on to Boulder, with my buddies dad setting a nice leisurely pace. This really is a cool section of trail to hike as it works its way up around the edge of the bowl.
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Once reaching the top, above Hole-in-the-Wall, we decided we wanted to continue down to the tarns below Boulder Pass. I think the rocks through this part of the trail are really fascinating. As my friends father was a bit of a rockhound, we all spent a good amount of time looking for interesting rocks and features.

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We finally made it to the tarns, where we decided to hike out to the head of the falls falling down towards Bowman. We stopped to eat lunch and decided it would be a good place for a swim. It was not. The water had to have been 10-15 degrees colder than Francis or Thunderbird. And it was not exactly hot outside either - maybe mid 50s? We walked around the tarns to find the deepest spot - which turned out to be really close to the edge by the outlet to the waterfall. The water was crystal clear. We could tell it was at least 6 or 7 feet deep just a few feet off shore, but couldn't tell how deep it actually got. We ended up deciding to strip down and dive in head first rather than slowly wading in. After a very reluctant countdown, we both dove in together and IT WAS COLD. We both frantically tried to get back out, but the rocks were pretty slippery. In the end, we got out feeling very refreshed and probably smelled a lot better. After a few more dives, we sunned off while finishing lunch and then headed on to the pass. I didn't take any pictures of the swimming, which is probably a good thing because my white sheen would have blown out the pictures anyways.

We made good progress the rest of the way, hiking up the pass and then along and over to Boulder Pass campground. Once there, we set up camp and relaxed in the food prep area for a while. We debated scrambling up Boulder Peak, but my buddies dad indicated he wasn't up for it today, but would be in to climb in the morning. So instead, my buddy and I decided to explore the boulder field to the NE of the campground. The map below shows our rough route.

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It took us a few hours to make the loop, but I'd always wanted to hike up the north end of that boulder field and look down into that next valley. Unfortunately, it was just as full of smoke as all the others. However, there were a number of great little waterfalls, ponds, and meadows along the hike. This one was my favorite and is indicated on the map with a red dot.

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When we got back to camp, we found that my friends dad was gone. It was starting to get late, and a little dark, before he came back. Turns out he had gone exploring to start scoping out the scramble to Boulder Peak and had just kept going 'a little further' until he found the 'throne' on the summit. While we were a little upset he went without us, we still had a good time exploring the boulder field and decided we'd make the climb in the morning.

We had a group of hikers come in late that evening that joined us for dinner. They were in a hiking club for retirees (all women) and had a much more strenuous permit than us. Two of them had hiked in, but there was a third that was somewhere behind them. They were a little concerned she wouldn't make it in that evening as she was hiking much more slowly, but said that she was well prepared and would just stop if need be along the trail. After dinner, we were treated to another spectacular sunset with the smoke. The photo below is another contribution to my series entitles "views from the pit toilets of GNP."

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Late that night, we decided to try our hand again at photographing the milky way. It was a little more overcast than the night before, but we were able to enjoy another beautiful night and get a few photos. The one below is looking to the west from near the campground, with Kintla and Kinnerly on the horizon near the center.

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Despite the smoke, it was another great day! And still no bear spray disaster!
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by Jay w »

I wondered what was out in that boulder field. Great shots. And, I laughed at the swim. Cognitive dissonance?

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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by tibber »

nice way to spend the day in the boulder field area. The waterfall photos are beautiful.

Bummer about the smoke obscuring your view into the next valley though.
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by PeteE »

great report Jason.
Good photos too in spite of the smoke.
I too like the pics of the water falls :)

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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by teapot57 »

I believe this photo was taken looking across to the area you explored with Akamina Ridge in the background:

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Sounds like a great way to spend the afternoon. Lots of beautiful areas to explore up there.

If the tarn you jumped into is the one I am thinking of (to your left just before you make the final climb to Boulder pass), I had no idea it would be so deep!
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

teapot57 wrote:I believe this photo was taken looking across to the area you explored with Akamina Ridge in the background
Yep, teapot! This is where we spent the afternoon. That boulder field is a lot bigger than it looks. And it is NOT flat. But it was a great place to explore!
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

Continuing on!

Since half the group had walked up Boulder the night before, we decided to split up and my buddy and I would scramble up to the peak while our dad's would get a head start. We weren't in too much of a hurry, since we were only headed to Brown Pass campground AND we had been up for a few hours that night watching the stars. We had a late breakfast, and split up.

We weren't exactly sure the best way to get to the top, but wanted to get a good view of Pocket Lake anyways, so we headed up towards the lake. It really didn't take much route finding to fine the best route to the summit, and it turned out there were some pretty good views from the trail. So double score.

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We considered dropping down to the lake, but after scoping out a route, decided we'd rather spend some more time on the peak. So we continued on up what seemed like an endless incline until all of the sudden you top out and find the throne that's been constructed on the summit. I know I have some pictures somewhere - I'll try to find one - but the summit cairn has been built into a pretty spectacular rock recliner. But after we explored the summit, we decided to continue on out to the next rise/false summit that really overlooks the Boulder Pass area and Hole-in-the-Wall basin.

The image below is from the false summit past the summit marker, looking back towards Hole-in-the-Wall. You can also see the tarn we had swum in the day before in the lower left hand corner right above the snow field - not the one along the trail that can be seen about a third of the way up the left hand side of the picture.

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Here's a better view of the same area.

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About that time we started wondering where our dad's were as they were still in camp when we left. While watching the valley below, we finally spotted them making their way back towards the tarns from Boulder Pass. They're actually in the image below, but it's pretty hard to spot them (just to the right of the leftmost melt pond). You can also see the old trail up on the ridge behind them. I was carrying an old topo map which showed the trail and I was curious where it went. Plus, we spoke with a few hikers the day before who were planning on taking it back so we were trying to spot them too. We didn't see them, but we did figure out approximately where the old trail junction was and made a point to check it out on our way down.

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On our way down, we again stopped to consider a journey down to Pocket Lake, but decided it would wait for another day. But it looks so inviting!

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We made it down in short order, headed back to camp, packed up our tents/packs, and hit the trail. We found the trail junction we were looking for at the pass before heading down to the tarns again. We made it around the corner, overlooking Hole-in-the-Wall, before we stopped to grab lunch. Smoke was a little bit better today, but you could still barely make out Thunderbird across the valley. But this is such a great section of trail. After lunch, we picked it up to try to catch our dads, but first caught up with the women from the night before - oh, I forgot - their hiking partner never did make it in the night before. Turns out, she had made it as far as
Boulder Pass as it was getting dark, but wasn't sure how much further camp was (maybe 20 minutes?), so she set up by the tarns where we had gone for a swim. Anyways, we caught up with them as we dropped down to the bench above the Hole-in-the-Wall cirque. They were all in good spirits and were headed back to Janet or Francis, so we continued on the trail.

I don't recall exactly where we caught up with our dad's, but it was pretty close to Brown Pass campground. When we arrived, we hung our packs and took all of our water bottles and camel backs down the trail (about 1/8 mile) to the nearest water source as the water through camp had dried up. When we got back, we had our pick of sites as no one else had arrived. There were several good options, but we chose the middle site between the cooking area and the pit toilet. After hearing so many bad things about BRO, we were expecting the worst. But it turned out to be a pretty nice area - we didn't even have any issues with bugs. But perhaps that was due to the water drying up. We had another great sunset that night.

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We had the site to ourselves that night. It looked like we might get some rain, so we pulled out the rain flys. Good decision as we did get about an hour or rain in the late night/early morning.
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by tibber »

still such a shame about that darn smoke but good pictures in spite of it. Pocket Lake view is really something.
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

tibber wrote:still such a shame about that darn smoke but good pictures in spite of it. Pocket Lake view is really something.
tibber - yeah, this marks two years in a row that we've ended up with heavy smoke in the backcountry. It was sad for me as I've been to the park so many times with crystal clear skies and really wanted my dad, my buddy, and his dad to get to experience the same. But I think even in spite of the smoke, everyone had a great trip.

So on to the next day.

We woke up to rain on our fifth day. We had considered splitting up again for the two of us to scramble up Chapman Peak and then meet up again with our dad's at Francis that evening. But the rain convinced us otherwise and we enjoyed a late morning in our tents. After breakfast and letting our tents dry out, we packed up and headed out for Francis around 10am. The trail was really wet until we started down the switchbacks and then it seemed to dry up. Fortunately, the rain had washed some of the smoke out of the air, so we were at least able to get some less smokey picks of Thunderbird Falls. This is my dad and I right before the last switchback before reaching Thunderbird Pond.

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We got the pond sometime around 11am, and despite the fact that the day was still pretty cool, we decided we really needed to go for a swim. I stripped down to my underwear and after a lot of convincing, took a headfirst dive off the big rock. I have a pretty good video - great form. Unfortunately, my ex officio travel briefs were a little too loose after 5 days on the trail... so the video may not be so PG. The worst part was that the water, while not nearly as cold as the tarns at Brown Pass, was still really really cold and I had to try to find my underwear and get them back on. Fortunately, I found them around one of my ankles, so no harm done. After getting out, we dried off in the sun and enjoyed a second breakfast. By the time we were ready to continue on, the smoke was already starting to settle back in.

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The hike from Thunderbird on to Francis is nothing special and we covered it pretty quickly. Both sites were empty when we arrived, so we set up in the larger and then grabbed lunch in the food prep area. With a full day at Francis, we decided to take the fishing poles down and enjoy the afternoon. We started by the beach, and immediately started catching trout. I swear it's almost impossible to throw a spinner into that lake more than a few times in a row without having to take a fish off a hook. We decided to work our way around the lake, counterclockwise, towards the waterfall. The lake is quite fascinating as you get closer to the waterfall - in places there is a shelf along the edge with a pretty deep drop off. The water was so clear that you could drop a lure right off the ledge and watch it sink for 10 feet and then watch the trout chase it on the way up. In other places, the ledge disappears and you have to scramble on the shore, up and over some scree, to continue towards the waterfall. In some of those places, a slip would put you right into some deep, cold water.

It took us an hour and half or so to get to the waterfall as fishing was pretty good. Once we got there, fishing got even better. You could stand right in the waterfall and throw it over the edge and pull fish out.

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We continued exploring and fishing for a while, and hiked back up the waterfall to get some better views. The lake really was beautiful from this side, especially as the sun started slipping behind the headwall.

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The picture below is looking back from the waterfall towards the beach below the campsite.

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Sometime around 4:00pm, we decided to head back to the beach so we could catch a few more fish for dinner. Again, the walk back was slow due to the exceptional fishing as we picked our way back along the shore. We continued to leapfrog each other to find fishing spots and continue working our way back until, at about the 2/3 mark, I passed my buddy and had to scramble up on the scree slope to avoid going for a swim in a pretty deep drop off. As I was working my way back down to the lake, with my fishing pole in one hand, my phone in my pocket, and a small tackle kit in the other pocket, I started to slide on the scree. Not wanting to slide right into the lake, my brain made the decision to sit down on the slow my descent.

This will go down in my biography as a pretty poor decision. I had just sat down when I heard a loud pop and hiss - it was amazing how quickly my brain remembered the other thing in my back pocket: my bear spray! I wasn't positive what had happened, but I was pretty sure, so I immediately dropped everything in my hands, ripped the bear spray out of my pocket, and dove headfirst into the lake.

While underwater, I was trying to figure out if my bear spray had really just exploded? Was it a snake? A gunshot? When I came back up, I had my answer. My left eye started burning and I could hear my buddy, who was maybe 30 feet downwind, coughing hard. I yelled that I thought my bear spray had exploded and that he should get as far away as possible. Amazingly enough, he had figured it out before me, perhaps due to the cloud of fire and brimstone wafting over him?

I began to start flushing my eyes with water. I used my right hand to hold my eyes open and my left to scoop and throw water into my face. I had pulled my wet shirt up over my mouth and was able to breathe relatively easily, but my eyes got worse and worse and within a couple of minutes, I could no longer see. My friend kept yelling if I was ok, and I told him I couldn't see, but that there wasn't much he could do. So he waited about 15 minutes until he could walk over and see what had happened. He found my can of bear spray, fishing rod, and phone (I had thrown that back on shore as quickly as I could). He also got close enough to see me and let me know that I was covered in an orange coating of industrial strength pepper spray. When I had sat down, I had stuck my left arm out behind me to catch my fall and it, my left hand, left side, back, and legs were COVERED in it. Meanwhile, I was continuing to use my bear spray-tanned hand to scoop water, also covered with an Exxon Valdez level oily pepper spray coating, straight into my face for the past 15 minutes. On his advice (since I couldn't see anything), I stripped off my shirt and used it to scrub my arm as much as possible, then swim/shuffle down the shoreline to a place where the water wasn't so polluted.

After another 15 or so minutes of flushing my eyes, I started to be able to get momentary glimpses of light - enough that I could get my bearings. My friend, at that point, offered to head back to camp to get me some clean clothes since everything I was wearing, including my underwear, was caked in it. After another 15 minutes or so, I felt comfortable enough to try to start heading back to camp. It was also about this time that I started feeling a little cold - after being in Lake Francis for 45 minutes. I half swam, half walked back to the beach. Upon arriving, I stripped down and, for the first time in my life, went for a skinny dip in the lake to try to scrub off everything I could. I had to get out at least chest deep - and was really feeling cold now. Luckily, about this time, the rest of the group came back down with dry clothes and a towel. So I was able to get dressed. My face, arms, legs, and back were still burning like crazy from the manly musk of the devil's cologne covering me, but at least I could see again.

We made it back up to our campsite in time to see a new group hiking in. The other site was already full, and it became obvious very quickly that these people did not have a permit. They claimed to have a permit for Waterton Lakes, and had hiked in from Waterton, but had decided to walk up to Francis to try some fly fishing. Upon arriving (at 5:30pm!!!) they decided it wasn't possible to get back, so they were going to sleep there. For some reason - possibly the fact that I was covered in some kind of cold war era chemical weapon and was not in the best of moods - I was a little pissed off by this. No one is going to hike 12 extra miles, round trip, for a few minutes of fishing, that late in the day, and carry their full packs with them. They had every intention of poaching a site. I gave them a pretty rude talking to and told them they couldn't set up in our site, so they decided to go camp on the beach. This made me even more pissed, because hey, I wanted to camp on the beach. Oh, and also, these jerks weren't even covered in flaming liquid fire. Honestly, if I'd had another can of nuclear whip cream, I'd have sprayed them down too. I'm sure they got a good laugh out of me, with my face and arms still orange like a backwoods oompa loompa, whining about permits.

After they headed down to set up their tent, we had dinner up in camp. I have to admit, the napalm in my beard really spiced up my beef stroganoff. I wouldn't recommend the recipe, unless you're really into spicy foods. I also finally took a look at the bear spray canister to see what had happened. Upon inspection, it would appear I magically fell right on the point of a very sharp rock. That or the pin that was in my bear grenade fell out at an opportune time.

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My hiking group, by the way, thought this whole incident may have been the funnies thing they'd ever seen. The orange sheen must have been particularly enjoyable. I tried taking a selfie to see, but the color didn't turn out too well. You can see, what I thought, was a shaping up to be a pretty good mountain man beard. Unfortunately, the bear spray-in conditioner and beard balm would prove to be difficult to remove and I ended up having to shave most of it off when we left the park.

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After dinner, we decided to walk back down to the lake. It was getting pretty cold, according to everyone else, but I still felt like a human torch. It did give me some level of happiness that the guys poaching the beach camp site wouldn't come out of their tent while we were down there. I will admit that they had a pretty sweet view.

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That night was not the best night of sleep I've ever gotten. It turns out that bear spray seems to be heat activated. And while strong enough for a bear, it is not pH balanced for a man. I spent most of the night sleeping on top of my quilt, without a shirt off, with half of my body freezing trying to keep the other half of my body from spontaneously combusting. On the bright side, I don't imagine that any bear in the park would come within a few hundred feet of our campsite that night.

In hindsight, this will probably turn into one of my most memorable back country experiences. I like to try to focus on the positives, and there were a few of them. I will say that I have a new level of confidence that bear spray would have an excellent chance of warding off a bear attack. Now, it may just blind both of you for 30 minutes before you get eaten anyways. But at least the bear would have to deal with some spicy burning on the other end of that exchange. Honestly, I think if I were faced with a bear, I'd have to wonder how badly I was about to get mauled to decide if I'd rather risk spraying myself or just get chewed on a bit.

At the end of the day, I learned something important. Probably not a good idea to carry bear spray in your back pocket.
Last edited by NDjason on Sat Nov 03, 2018 7:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by trevbo »

Oh wow, epic accidental self-bear spray story dude... wowsers...
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by paul »

Wow Jason, that is some story. I'm glad you managed to handle the exploding can of bear spray without any permanent damage. I think I would have freaked out if that happened to me. Some years ago I accidentally inhaled just a little tiny bit of bear spray and was unable to breath for 45 seconds. (I couldn't get any air into my lungs)

I'm also glad you told those poachers off. I wish there were more rangers to patrol the trails and camps.
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by Jay w »

That's quite a story. I can't believe you can stand the water for that long. You're a Viking.

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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by PeteE »

Oh Man!!
That bear spray is powerful stuff. Got some on my arm once "demonstrating" how to use it.
I'm with Paul on the danger of inhaling bear spray if you need to use it for real.
It could cause your trachea to swell up making breathing very difficult.
And yeah, I'm afraid that cold lake would have put me in shock :(

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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

paul wrote:Some years ago I accidentally inhaled just a little tiny bit of bear spray and was unable to breath for 45 seconds. (I couldn't get any air into my lungs)
Paul - I was very lucky to avoid breathing much of it. The water and wet shirt helped, I'm sure. I would have really panicked if i started having trouble breathing!
Jay wrote:That's quite a story. I can't believe you can stand the water for that long. You're a Viking.
Jay, we had been walking in and out of the water and fishing in the waterfall for quite a while, so I was getting somewhat used to the water temp. After diving in, while the adrenaline was pumping and my eyes were on fire, I didn't even think about the water temp until my vision started coming back and I started to calm down!
Pete wrote:That bear spray is powerful stuff. Got some on my arm once "demonstrating" how to use it.
I didn't notice the burning on my skin too much while in the water and rinsing my eyes. But I think having had it on my body for 15+ minutes without knowing about it caused me to get, at a minimum, some severe skin irritation or perhaps even some mild chemical burns on my arms, legs, and back. The next 36 or so hours was pretty intense. Have you ever used Tiger Balm? :evil:
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by KyCindy »

Hi Jason
I enjoyed your report and your pictures. I especially like the Milky Way shot. We were too exhausted from our daily adventures two years ago to look at the night sky. We plan to work that into our schedule for our upcoming trip in July 2019. I also appreciate you mentioning how customs works on the boat to Goat Haunt. We are considering taking boat from Waterton to Goat Haunt and hike back to Waterton. It sounds like we need to allow extra time for iPad queue. And of course nothing like a cautionary bear spray incident to spice up your tale. Ouch! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks,
Cindy
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