Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

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Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

2018 trip to GNP is complete!

I got back last week after 7 days in Glacier. It was a short trip, but lots of firsts:
- first time visiting Waterton (cute little town)
- first time seeing Chief Mountain (very hazy)
- first time in Boulder, Brown, and Hawksbill backcountry campgrounds (great, ok, and meh)
- first time using an Enlightened Equipment quilt (awesome)
- first time having a canister of bear spray explode in my pocket (not cool)
- first time getting up in the middle of the night to see the stars and take milky way photos from the backcountry (worth it, even with the smoke)

It'll probably take me a while to get through this, but I'll get started. Back in March, one of my good friends from work decided he'd like to go to Glacier and asked for some permit advice. After giving him a brain dump, we decided to enter two permit requests to up the chances of landing an good trip. Fortunately, my permit was approved (HAW-HOL-BOU-BRO-FRA). Then I really got the itch to join him and he was gracious enough to allow me to tag along. So this year it was myself, my dad, my friend, and his dad.

Day 1: My dad and I flew out of Houston, to Denver, and on to Great Falls. We booked our flights so we'd be on the same flight as my friend - it made car rentals and travel plans around the park so much easier. We got in to Great Falls around dinner time, but took a quick sightseeing trip to see the falls while we waited for my buddy's backpack to arrive (they failed to put it on the plane in Denver). With the dry summer and all of the dams on the river, the falls were less than I expected. But Giant Spring was pretty cool! Definitely the biggest spring I've seen!

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After some sightseeing, we made a quick supply trip to Wal-mart (got everything but the bear spray) and then checked into our hotel. Somewhere between Houston and Great Falls, we first heard that there were three new fire starts in the part. Last summer, we flew out the day they stopped giving permits out, so I had fears that we'd run into the same. So after checking into the hotel, we did some test packing and then a lot of planning in case our trip was cancelled. Got to bed early for an early start on day 2!

Day 2: Woke up early and stopped by North 40 for bear spray, and then hopped in the car to head to the park. Somewhere outside of Browning, we saw a car broken down on the side of the road. We stopped and let the driver and her dog squeeze into our car (along with our 4 backpacks and all the other gear - tight fit) and made our way into Browning where we dropped her off. We then headed into St. Mary's to get our permits. By the time we arrived (11am), the permit desks were pretty empty. So it was a quick process of picking up our permit. We were told that Going to the Sun Road was closed from the west side to Logan Pass due to the fires, but that there were no real fire concerns on our route. So with time to kill, we first drove up to Logan Pass and luckily quickly found a parking spot, despite the lot being very full. We took a quick walk to the Logan Pass sign, and then walked out past the rim-rock section of the high line trail.

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We then left the park and headed up to Waterton! After a quick lunch at Two Sisters (delicious), we breezed through customs and checked into our reserved camp site in Waterton Townsite. First off, this was a pretty cool little place. I will definitely be bringing my kids back. We saw a black bear crossing the road in front of us just as we entered the park - it would be the only bear we saw this week. The views down the lake and around the Prince of Wales were hazy, at best, and only got worse through the afternoon. We grabbed some ice cream, picked up boat tickets for the next morning, walked around town, and skipped rocks for a while before doing a final gear check and calling it a night. Also, the bathrooms were awesome. Great showers!

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Since we were planning on getting an early start, we played a few rounds of cards (4 card golf was the game of choice this trip - we invented special rules each night), we went to bed early. Looking forward to heading into the backcountry tomorrow!
~ jason
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by teapot57 »

Waterton is a great little town and I like the campground, too. I think camping there and then taking the boat to Goat Haunt would be a great way to start a backpack.

You and your friend kinda look alike! :D

Looking forward to more.
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by Jay w »

Good for you in stopping for a broken down car. Hopefully your trip wasn't all smoke.

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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by thorn726 »

nice report and photos thanks for sharing!
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

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Day 3: We woke up early to eat some breakfast, break camp, and pack up our gear. We needed to go through Customs via the ROAM app, which we had never tried before, before we got on the boat to Goat Haunt, so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. Unfortunately, while breaking camp and packing things up, I realized I had somehow lost my headlamp. I tried replacing my steps from the night before - which meant a walk down to Waterton lake, a trip to the bathroom/showers, and a loop around the campground. No dice. Eventually, I resigned myself to buying a new one before we left Waterton. But then as I took my hat off to change my shirt, I found it on my hat. We had all four of us looking for it, and no one bothered to notice it was on my head the entire time.

So we had purchased tickets for the 10am boat ride and been told to arrive at 9:30 to complete the Customs check-in via the iPads on the boat dock. Luckily, we arrived by 9:15 after parking our car along the road (under a streetlight - it had been suggested to park under a light along the road to prevent breakins? is there a big crime problem in Wateron?) and carrying our packs over to the dock. When we got to the iPads, there was already quite a line. Apparently they had forgotten to charge the iPads, so only one was working, and it wasn't working well. We pulled out our cell phones and tried to download the app, set up our trip, and connect to Customs, but the app was having trouble. We manged to burn through almost 20% of our cell battery in just about 30 minutes before we finally got a turn at the iPad and finally got cleared. As I was planning on using my phone as a camera for the entire trip, I ran back to the car and tried to charge it up for a couple of minutes (got about 5% back) before booking it back to the boat. As we were on the dock waiting to load, I pulled my ticket out just in time for a gust of wind to blow it out of my hand. It then, amazingly, fell right between two boards on the dock and dropped down underneath. I jumped over the railing and went under the dock and luckily found it dry and on shore. Finally we got on the boat and were on our way.

The smoke was much worse this morning than it had been the previous day. For the first half of the trip, while hugging the western shore, we could barely even see the other side of the lake. There was no wildlife along the way, but we had a fun time. We got to Waterton and on the trail sometime around 11:30am. We spoke with a few hikers who warned us of mosquitoes near Waterton River Campground, but we were still no where near prepared. We had to drop packs, break out the spray, and douse ourselves to stop the feeding frenzy. I think, amazingly, this was the last mosquito on the entire trip.

Our first night was at Hawksbill, so we had plenty of time to get there. So we took our time and stopped at Lake Janet for a while. The water was much higher than I remembered last year. We ate lunch at the western/inlet end of the lake right by the trail. At the inlet the previous year, there had been several braided streams flowing in through a muddy area - but this time it was all under water. Unfortunately, due to the smoke, we couldn't even make out the ridgeline of the Citadel Peaks or Porcupine Ridge. You couldn't taste or smell the smoke in the Olson Creek valley, but it sure made everything hazy a few thousand feet up.

Just after Janet, we ran into a group of hikers we recognized! Two good friends of mine (one of whom works in my office in Houston, TX and the other works in our NYC office) had started 4 days earlier and were headed the other direction. They had started with a FRA-BRO-BOU-HOL-HAW permit, but had modified it FRA-BRO-BOU-HOL-WAT-GLF-MOL-FIF-GRN-MAN-GUN-REY-MAN-ELF. If it sounds crazy to you, don't worry. It also sounds crazy to me. But, this guy had literally walked across the entire continent of Australia on a summer break from college. So it probably didn't sound so intimidating to him. It turned out that they had to make a few adjustments half way through the trip due to the fires, but he had a great trip.

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Before we split, we grabbed a group picture.
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After that, it was on to Hawksbill. When we got there, we grabbed a site and set up our tents. Then my buddy and I grabbed our fishing hear and backtracked down to Francis while our dads relaxed in camp for a while. The views at Francis were seriously impacted by the haze, but fishing started out great, I caught a trout on my first and third casts before my buddy's reel starting having some issues. We took a few minutes trying to fix it before giving up and heading back to camp for dinner.

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Back at camp, we had a great dinner of our dehydrated meals while trying to figure out where the heck the hawksbill was. We thought we could make a vulture head, but no hakwsbill was seen. If you've got a photo of the hawkbill and can explain it, I'd love to see it. About the time we finished up dinner, another group came in that had a permit for Brown Pass. They said the smoke was pretty bad up there, the bugs were terrible, the pit toilet was filling up, and the water had dried out. They said a ranger had told them they could try to grab a spot at Hawksbill if there was an opening, or they could set up camp at the hitching post. They hung our around the food prep area with us for a while (even through the other site was empty) waiting to see if anyone else would come. When it was starting to get dark, they decided to set up camp in the other site. We knew that the second site was originally booked by our friends (we were planning on meeting up, but they wanted to shorten their next day), so there was a good chance it was open. Interestingly, we both had permits for this night but there were only two sites? I thought they held half for walkups?

At any rate, we decided to sleep without the flys on the tent that night. It was encouraging to see the stars coming out one by one as it got darker until we could see the milky way through the tent wall. I had packed in my DSLR and a tripod hoping to take some mikly way photos, so I was glad to see it clear up and it gave us some hope that the smoke would clear in the morning.
~ jason
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by teapot57 »

Nothing like a bit of stress before entering the backcountry to make you appreciate getting off the grid all the more.

Your friend’s itinerary was insane! But in a good way. :D I would love to spend 14 nights in the backcountry. Is that the max number of days they allow?

Great fish photo. Enjoying your report. Keep it coming!
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

teapot57 wrote:Nothing like a bit of stress before entering the backcountry to make you appreciate getting off the grid all the more.

Your friend’s itinerary was insane! But in a good way. :D I would love to spend 14 nights in the backcountry. Is that the max number of days they allow?

Great fish photo. Enjoying your report. Keep it coming!
Yes - I think 14 days is the longest they will allow on a single itinerary. He had a great trip, but it did get modified half way through when they were worried about a few sites being closed. So the overall mileage wasn't as bad as it looks. I think 14 days is longer than I'd want to try - certainly more than I'd want to pack for without caching food!
~ jason
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

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So onward. The next day we were headed up to Hole in the Wall. Last year, the section of trail between HAW and HOL had been packed with huckleberries, so I was looking forward to snacking the entire way. Also, I was looking forward to taking a swim in Thunderbird. The day before had been a pretty warm and was already feeling like I needed a shower. So after a good breakfast during which we continued to debate where the name "Hawksbill" came from, we packed up camp and hit the trail.

It turned out I had forgotten how close Thunderbird Pond was to HAW - it seemed like we got there in about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, it was only around 10am. The water was beautifully clear. After feeling the water, I decided I wasn't hot or dirty enough to jump in just yet. So we took a short water break to enjoy the views before heading up the trail.

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The section of trail around Thunderbird Pond really is quite spectacular - with the views of the glacier and the waterfall coming down in the valley. Unfortunately, the smoke was quickly getting worse. It was wasn't bad enough that we breathing was an issue, but the haze hanging in the valley made it impossible to take any good pictures. The climb up to Brown Pass didn't get much better as we found it entirely devoid of huckleberries. Well, we found a berry here and a berry there, and rushed to steal them before anyone else in the party laid claim. But the berries that we'd found to be so plentiful the year before were largely non-existent. Even the thimbleberries were getting sparse. So we made pretty good time without those distractions.

We made it about half way along the trail beneath Mt Chapman before breaking for lunch in one of the many dried creek beds coming down the slopes. We found one that offered a little bit of shade and enjoyed a long lunch before heading on. Sorry for the lack of photos, but there wasn't much to see. We had hiked the same section of trail the year before, during the Sprague Creek fire, and had much better views. At no point could we make out Bowman or even the falls coming down from Boulder Pass. But we still enjoyed the hike. Just as we took the junction to hike down to Hole in the Wall we were passed by a young couple heading down to camp. I regret not speeding up and beating them into camp, because for the second year in a row, we missed out on the great campsite across the creek.

But we got into camp early enough to hang our food, set up camp, and relax in the stream for a while before deciding the follow the stream down to the Hole in the Wall falls. The hike down was great - the creeks flowing down made for a number of beautiful running falls.

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We also really enjoyed the different types of rocks we ran across. As my friend's dad was a bit of a rock hound, we found ourselves frequently stopping to check out the streambed. I know I've seen some explanations of these before, but can someone remind me of what this is?

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Eventually, we made it to the end. The stream was getting pretty dry - at some point it dropped under the creek bed. And as you get closer to the end, there starts to be some pretty big drops. But we were able to eventually reach a point where we couldn't go any further. The smoke was again a disappointment as I imagine the view here on a clear day would be something to see. As it was, we were barely able to make out Thunderbird across the valley.

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As we made our way back to camp, things started to clear up a little bit.

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I believe the camp was full this night. So the food prep area was quite busy. This year, I had brought along a Katadyn 10L Base Camp filter (gravity filter) which we could scoop up 10L of water and hang in the food prep area for everyone to use. It turned out to be a great way to bond in camp as no one wants to waste time filtering water when they're hungry. We had a great time meeting the others in camp - there was a young couple from Idaha, a family (father/mother and three daughters) I think from Northern CA, and a college professor from Indiana that researched Ptarmigans and Grouse. The family with three daughters gave my friend great hope as he's got two little girls himself and has plans of doing a lot of family trips. My wife is counting down the days until my 3 and 4 year old are hiking with me.

After dinner, we were treated to a great sunset.

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Encouraged by the haze clearing off, we decided to set an alarm for midnight to take a look at the stars. When we got up, it was still hazy to the south, but we still decided to try to take some pictures. We headed back up the trail towards the junction and found a good spot within one of the clearings where we could take in the sight. Pictures really didn't amount to much, but the sky at least cleared up enough that we could see the milky way.

This was provided for an interesting view of Thunderbird with some of the smoke from the Howe Ridge fire backlighting Thunderbird. Mars looks outlandishly large in the haze along the horizon.

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In the end, we were glad we got up. I'm not sure how many total nights I've spent backpacking in Glacier, but I've spent entirely too few of them viewing the stars. Although I will admit it gets to be a little eerie with no lights and the thoughts of grizzly bears bouncing around in your head. After getting back to bed around 1:30am, it was another good night of sleep.
~ jason
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by Jay w »

The smoke adds interest since it's unusual. The star pictures are great and worth the hassle getting out of a warm sleeping bag in the middle of the night.

Thanks for posting. Oh, and I loved the bit about losing the ticket under the dock. Nothing like a little stress to spice up a trip report.

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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by tibber »

great pictures in spite of the smoke.

and I can relate to the huckleberry switch-backing up to Brown's last year as well; something I will never forget and my mouth waters at the thought.

I think the rock is the stromatolites?
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by davidwayne »

Thank you for the updates. I've never been able to backcountry at Glacier, so I am especially enjoying your trip report.
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by NDjason »

Thanks for the comments. While getting up in the middle of the night for the stars was definitely worth it, carrying the camera and tripod may not have been. But we had pretty light packs and my dad volunteered to strap the tripod on his - so I don't regret it. Clearer skies would have been nice though...

Tibber - yes, I had even brought an extra bag to fill with huckleberries for camp snacking, was disappointing to never find enough berries to eat on the trail, let alone save for later.

David - coming in and out of Goat Haunt is a great way to try a first backpacking trip!
~ jason
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by PeteE »

Great report Jason. I love the night shots, and agree with Jay. The smoke does give a unique look to the starry sky.
I gotta try some night shots when the air clears out this fall.
Well done.

pete :wink:

PS
The bear spray incident makes me cringe. I got just a little blow back one day on my arm practicing. Burned like hell!!
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by daveparker »

Bear spray is not a fun toy! :D

I have been exposed so many times to it, I actually started building an immunity to it, after working in and out of the factory for 12 years it becomes a daily thing to somehow someway to get sprayed or get it on you.

It is not an experience I recommend to anybody, cause if you try to wash it off, even in lukewarm water it makes it burn more! I used to hate taking a shower when I got home from working at Counter Assault, cause you found every spot you got it on you, that you didn't even know about!

:shock:
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Re: Glacier 2018: The bear spray incident

Post by trevbo »

What happened with your bear spray? Tell us more!
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