Tag: Grizzly

Confidence is helpful

15-second video: Time to start our first retreat. All good. No threat. Yet absolutely proactive.

i only want to be as cocky as telling the devil to go take a long walk off a short pier.

Note: AKA “hey devil, go screw yourself”.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

Grizzly Bear context getting clearer

20-second video: “Junior” is perched high above the trail. Another big Grizzly is heading to the trail.

We watch, patiently, enthralled with anticipation.

If the Bears make a right onto the trail (which is the direction we are heading), we’ll respectfully follow at their pace. With no desire to get closer.

If like the first bear, they all cross the trail and continue straight up Gunsight Mountain, cool.

If they hang a left toward us, we have a couple options.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

Random 2025 Glacier video, spirit

29-second video: Remember how far away the Grizzly is from us? And, we were not looking for bears. Unreal that my eye fixated on a small, literally stationary ‘boulder’ in a tiny pond a couple hundred meters away.

There are only six peaks above 10,000′ in Glacier. One of them, Mount Jackson, is across from us. Our trail is around 7,000′. We are the only people on the trail. We are so deep in that we expect to see from zero to 10 people all day.

Note: Attention Deficit Disorder…Not for us. Not this day.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

Scariest animal encounter

Video context:

  • First and foremost, safety takes a back seat to nothing. Never get this close to wild animals.
  • Spent nearly five hours hiking to Mountain Pass (7,600′), enjoying lunch, relaxing
  • Sun will soon be out of sight
  • Car is five miles away
  • Been hiking in Grizzly Bear country for 50 years
  • We are alone on the mountain Pass, late September
  • i miraculously spot a bear 800 meters from the Pass
  • The bear is 10-15 meters from trail
  • Trail is the only way to safely pass the bear to return to car
  • As we hike down, we become blind to Bear’s location
  • We clear small forrest and see the Bear
  • Without hesitation, our only choice is obvious to me
  • We must get past the bear or risk being trapped
  • Once Sun disappears behind Continental Divide, it gets cold quickly
  • There is no safe way to pass if we attempt off-trail route
  • Trusted my gut from 50 years of wilderness experience
  • We talk loud so the Bear knows we are coming, to avoid surprise
  • Bear is foraging in a hole it dug, eyes “buried”, we quickly pass
  • We walk (never run) far down the trail, peering back often
  • We pause, grateful to be on the car side of trail
  • In this moment, i sense something for first time in half a century
  • Bear is focused on eating, not us
  • We observe Bear is a surreal encounter
  • Scariest animal encounter ever, and also the most incredible
  • Finally, this is absolutely the most dangerous position to be in. NEVER think for a moment that you can safely do what we just did
  • i know i will be a fool to think this would ever be safe in the future. You should too.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.