I’m thinking that bear must be the smartest grizzly in Montana, although I’m sure glad we didn’t run into him Friday when he was coming off a vicious whiskey/dishsoap bender and presumably in a foul humor indeed.  At least he had a nice Therma-rest pad to sleep it off on!

While that Thursday morning episode was about as much of a non-event as having a grizzly right outside camp in the night can be, it still weighed  heavily on my mind and I pretty much fully expected some kind of damage when we got back to camp.  It’s a long and round-about trip into there, and when we rode into the camp meadow I was near ecstatic to see the tent standing with no apparent damage.  My mental state took a dive when I rode up to the tent, though.  Most everything was drug outside.  There really wasn’t all that much in it, but the tarp floor was half out, with a rolled-up cot, a couple of camp chairs, a cased lantern, couple of washtubs, and a few other miscellaneous items scattered about.  We tied up the horses and as I’ve learned from bitter experience, grizzlies or no, get your rifle out of the scabbard first thing.  Upon brief inspection, (and I’m speculating as to the sequence of events here), it looked like he’d come up to a back corner of the tent first.  For a grizzly bear, he was really pretty well mannered.  This tent is an old one a friend gave me, made of pretty light canvas that they used to market as Camper Cloth.  You could see right where he pressed his claws just below the eave, until one poked through and he made a neat incision down the corner of the tent.  Reached inside, and got a therma-rest pad off a cot, where I’d been sleeping the night before!  Pulled the pad out, & took a big bite out of it.  I didn’t know the foam was so thick in those things!  Then he went to the front corner on that side, and made a couple more incisions.   He then entered the door I’d so courteously left open, knocked the stove over, pawed the lantern case and washtubs outside, leaving a signature single tooth puncture in each.  Then he must have hooked a claw in the tarp floor, and drug it & everything on it outside.  I’d left a sleeping bag in a garbage sack suspended from the ridgepole, and inexplicably enough, he left that alone. 

So that pretty much had our full attention, but I really got a bad feeling when I walked back over by the horse hitchline and noticed my previously suspended kitchen box on the ground.  Before I’d left, I’d hung the kitchen box, which had the only items with any food odors to them, with the bottom well above the prescribed ten feet from the ground.  But there it was, on the ground with the lid off.  I wouldn’t say the contents were scattered; it was almost like they’d been carefully inventoried and gone through!  I really should have taken some pictures, but I wasn’t exactly planning on filing an insurance claim, and to tell the truth, I was more concerned with our personal safety at the moment!   That, and dismayed that this could really be happening…. 

My first concern was how he got it down!  The rope was not broken or bit through, or damaged in any way.  The only conclusion is that he untied the knot!  I don’t remember exactly what sort of knot I tied, and while I’m not a sailor, I am a horse packer, and I’m sure it was moderately complex or at least redundant.   So that’s hard enough to believe, but then the kitchen box is one of those Riley Stove Co. galvanized steel ones with a lid that latches into the bottom, has overlapping sides & top, and secures with two hefty Velcro straps.  Maybe the lid came off when it fell, but it’s not dented or damaged in any way, and you’d swear he opened the straps just like you or I would.

Now this was a serious bummer on several levels.  First off, I’ve got my 14 year old son with me, and for all we knew, we could be facing a disgruntled grizzly at any moment.  After hearing about the Thursday morning episode, his Grandma told my wife “Bill needs to be more careful”, and instead it was looking like our danger level had just escalated fairly dramatically.  And, in spite of following the regulations for camping in grizzly country to a T, this bear had gotten into our stuff and gotten a food reward for his trouble.  I believe in the saying about “a fed bear is a dead bear”, which didn’t make me happy at all, since it was looking real probable that we were likely to have first-hand involvement in the process and the outcome was far from certain.

So with Cody standing guard, I inventoried the damage.  He’d punctured a fuel bottle, and consumed a jug of vegetable oil, one of dish detergent, and to my considerable dismay, an entire 1.75 liter bottle of Kentucky’s finest!  All were in plastic containers, and had one puncture hole.   The whiskey bottle in particular showed signs of considerable massage, and I’m telling you; there was not ONE drop left in it!  Grizzly bears have a stout constitution, no doubt, but that particular cocktail would have to just about have to produce some noteworthy gastric consequences….

From then on we kept loaded weapons and/or pepper spray either in hand or within easy reach, and somewhat nervously went about putting camp back together, picketing the ponies out to graze, and generally getting squared away for what promised to be a long night.  One thing we noticed was that a rolled-up Thermarest pad was missing, and in looking for that (as well as making sure our visitor wasn’t sleeping off a vicious hangover somewhere close by) I came across some fresh tracks in the sand along the creek.  I suppose I’d been trying to rationalize our predicament, and was entertaining the thought that given the relative care and uncommon intelligence our visitor displayed, that maybe it was a wolverine, but that theory went out the window with the discovery of the tracks.  There were only three of them, all rear paw prints.  They were big, for sure, but not totally conclusive as to black or grizzly.  Last fall, we’d repeatedly seen a set of immense black bear tracks a couple of canyons over, and this spot would easily be within that bear’s range.  Cody chose to believe that this was the same bear, and that if/when he showed back up, we might be collecting the new state record black bear.  Under the circumstances, that probably wasn’t a bad mental strategy, although I stressed that we weren’t to be pulling the trigger on a bear without positive ID, unless the situation left no alternative.  Still, I kind of liked that black bear theory myself, and so with about an hour and a half of daylight left, and elk season opening the next morning, I decided to go on an elk scout/bear hunt.   If he was hanging around, I wanted to deal with the situation as soon as possible, and assuming we were up for it the next day, it wouldn’t hurt to have some elk located.  By that point our level of nervousness had subsided somewhat, and Cody was fine with keeping tabs on the situation around camp.  In fact, if you’ll afford me some parental pride, the kid was showing some real sand, and already cracking jokes about possible connections between the bruin’s recent diet and the missing Thermarest.

By the time it got dark, I’d discovered a bunch of fresh elk sign, but no bears.  At least it was somewhat of a morale boost to have reasonable confidence he wasn’t hanging right around somewhere, and besides, you can only stay really nervous for so long.  With nightfall, we again got the food items out of the tent and suspended, brought in the ponies (which make a dandy early warning system), arrayed our weapons within instant reach,  offered up a brief wish to the powers that be to watch over us in the coming night, and went to bed. 

I wouldn’t say either of us slept soundly, but morning came with a considerable sense of relief that the night had proved uneventful.  A good breakfast, and it was time to go elk hunting!  It proved to be a gorgeous September day (considering it’s late October), a fine day to be out in the wilderness as father, son, and hunters, but not particularly good elk hunting conditions.  But, we covered a bunch of country, explored some new spots, found abundant sign, and made note of some places I expect to provide superb trophy elk potential once we get some snow (which is happening this very moment!).  All in all, it was a fantastic day!  Except for two backpackers, we had the place to ourselves, which is near unbelievable.  At sunset we’d just finished checking out some meadows above camp that are full of seeps and elk wallows (although temporarily devoid of elk), and had climbed to a high point to glass and generally take in the view.  At that moment, I felt like the richest guy on the planet, and Cody agreed; “this is incredible.  I could never live anywhere else”.

That night we were dog tired, and after dinner of venison burritos hit the sack (with the usual precautions) and enjoyed another grizzly-free night.  We explored pretty thoroughly around the neighborhood, and are fairly confident that he has at least temporarily vacated the neighborhood.  Still, we took no chances and didn’t leave any attractants at camp.  We’re heading back in on Friday, and yes, I’m anxious to see what we find.  Some reasonable snowfall is forecast between now & then, and with any luck the smartest bear in the Madison Range will call it a year and retire to his den.  Possibly with a nice Thermarest pad…..

While on the one hand it's hard to complain about the bluebird weather, on the other the persistent dry conditions are getting a tad worrisome.  Fire season is supposed to be pretty much over by late October, but not this year.  A controlled burn here in the Gallatin got out of hand yesterday, as did another by Billings.  By far worst was a prairie fire west of Cut Bank that blackened over 10,000 acres!  All of these fires got away due to the high winds we've had lately.  In fact, a freight train blew off the tracks by East Glacier again last week!  I'll bet flyfishing the Blackfoot Reservation was problematic that day.

The long-range forecasts aren't particularly encouraging, although the current fourteen day forecast is calling for below normal temps and normal precip.  It's supposed to get down to 18 here tonight, so they may have that one called about right.   Throughout next week we're back to more seasonal highs in the 50's and 60's, with lows in the 20's and 30's.  Again, hard to complain about, but a few inches of snow or some rain would sure make elk hunting easier, not to mention reduce the fire danger and make winter wheat farmers happier.  Still, it's been so dry, for so long, that a drought advisory committee has pronounced that many parts of the state are running about a 25" accumulated moisture deficit.  Yes, that's about two years of annual rainfall for most of eastern MT, and so we're not going to get out of this situation overnight.

I know, multi-decade droughts don't exactly make for riveting news.  So how's this for excitement; I woke up with a grizzly bear in camp yesterday morning!  Yes, that tends to focus your concentration wonderfully!!  Here's the story, copied and pasted from a hunting bulletin board;

I spent Wednesday & Thursday packing in & setting up my elk camp, something I look forward to all year long. There's just very few things that give me the same level of gratification as heading down the trail, & looking back at my packstring, with the loads all riding nice & even...   It's hard to explain, but it just gives me this terrific feeling of calm & well-being. Anyway, seeing plenty of elk tracks wasn't hurting my mood any either, but what really grabbed my attention was a big honkin' grizzly track in the trail. First noticed it in a dry spot, that'd last been muddy about ten days ago. It was noteworthy enough that I got off & measured it against my hand. So now, all you grizzly experts will probably tell me it was just a piddling li'l thing, but I just checked my hand against a ruler, and the front pad was just over 6" across, and from the rear of the front pad to the claws 7.5".
For the next few miles until I turned up a side canyon those tracks were continuous along the trail, but since they were headed the opposite direction and ten days old, I wasn't just too concerned. Got in there and set up camp, and was a tired pup when I hit the sack about 10:00. Next thing I knew it was 4:30 and my horses were going nuts. I'd like to say I leapt out of bed with pepper spray in hand ready to do battle, but the truth of it is I was a befuddled mess for what seemed like way too long. Couldn't get a fix on my glasses or flashlight, and I'm sure glad our visitor wasn't in the tent with me. Finally staggered outside with my pasty white legs gleaming in the moonlight, which undoubtedly put the fear into him! I'd been concerned enough to put the panniers with horse and human food about 75 yards away (hadn't gotten a meat/food pole up yet, which is now rectified). Anyway, the horses were still majorly agitated, but I couldn't see any intruders with the flashlight, and the panniers were undisturbed. Lit the lantern, which seemed to have a great calming effect on the nags, and went back to bed. Daylight revealed those same bear tracks, or ones just like 'em, right outside camp, though. So you ask if I feel lucky? I do! I do!!!
Sure hope my camp isn't demolished when Cody & I get back there tomorrow! Any temptation (minimal, a kitchen box with some cooking oil, spices, detergent, etc.) is hung high out of reach, and the tent is open for his inspection so hopefully he won't feel compelled to make a new door. Actually, what concerns me most about the whole deal is if we should be so fortunate as to down an elk or two, and are in a race to retrieve 'em before Mr. Griz does....