Bears, Bears, and Bears, Oh My!

It was an interesting day in the forest...but that's what we get for going to a National Park instead of a National Forest (tongue in cheek, *wink*wink*).  We decided to go to Exit Glacier and do the 8.2 mile round trip to the Harding Ice Field.  Unfortunately we didn't make it for a number of reasons.  First, the mountains were mostly socked in, thus removing some of the point because we wouldn't be able to see a whole lot.  Second, after taking about two pictures my camera died, further removing some of the purpose for the hike (not saying that we NEED to take pictures to have fun, but how can we show you all what you are missing if we can't photograph it).  Finally, the hike wore us out in an unexpected way; we saw no less than 5 different black bears in the first 2 miles.  First we saw two first-summer bear cubs that were way up in a tree directly above the trail, and despite the fact that we did know where their mother was, we couldn't help but stop and check them out for a couple of minutes...and then go running back after we realized that we had Rachel's phone to take pictures with.  We continued up the trail and then ran into 3 black bears, fully grown this time, one of which gave us the "stomp and huff" because we got a little too close...while not even knowing it was there.  Fairly soon after that we came to the first "viewing area" of the glacier, where you get to look out over the whole of Exit Glacier...very cool!  We decided at that point that it was time to go back down, and after about five minutes wished that we had decided to head down sooner...we got stuck behind a huge group of people that were part of a guided group that went out onto the glacier.  Most of them didn't really seem like the type to be out doing something like that, but there they were, stopped in the middle of the trail because the guide did not want to go down the trail past the black bear cubs in the tree, because he didn't want to spook one of them back up the tree.  We totally understand until we have been standing between the 2 bear cubs in the tree and the 3 fully-grown black bears further up the mountain for 30 minutes...not to mention the fact that we are the only ones in what because a group of more than a dozen that had any form of bear deterrent.  But we finally got past and made it down.  IT WAS AWESOME!  Pictures of the bears to come...after we can find a way to get them off of Rachel's phone.

Take care everyone!
Rachel and Ben