My oldest brother is a big city University Professor. In the summer of 2002 his 13 year old daughter of suburbia came to Wyoming to spend some time with the horses on our cousin's Ranch; and then she was going to hike the end of the Colorado Trail with this Uncle of hers. Although the Colorado Trail didn't burn in 2002 much of it was closed to human activity in June and July during her visit after colossal fires erupted southwest of Denver and near Durango in southwestern Colorado. The 140,000 acre Hayman Fire southwest of Denver was the largest fire in the history of Colorado statehood. It was nothing like Yellowstone in 1988 or southern California in 2003, but the decision to remove the human equation from much of the Colorado backcountry for much of June and July was indeed a good one. Governor Bill Owens was ridiculed by the tourist industry for supposedly suggesting people should stay out of the mountains when he made the observation that the state was "...on fire." There were indeed fires all over the place, and as someone generally on the left side of the fence I applauded our Republican Governor for having the guts to do the unusual, to tell it like it indeed was and suggest doing the responsible thing.

Smoked off the Colorado Trail Uncle John made his way back to Wyoming for some wonderful hiking in the Tetons, Absaroka, and Gros Ventre Mountains. My niece was like many girls her age, completely enamored with horses. So I didn't ask her to backpack much at all and at the end of her stay I took her to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks for 5 days of car camping and day hiking. It was the last week of July, more often than not the height of great bounty for the animals of Greater Yellowstone, a time for them to sit around and put on weight, to relax, and a great time for the animals that we are to look for the seasonal and yearlong residents of this exquisite sub arctic ecosystem.

Disappointed after coming so close after an 8 mile hike we drove over to Colter Bay on Jackson Lake to get a campsite and have an early dinner. After dinner we hiked past Heron Pond and Swan Lake and farther out on Hermitage Point. After cresting point 6, 912' we made our way over to the Point's eastern shore and made our way to a beautiful pond off of Third Creek where I had seen Otter years ago. Those talented Otters' ancestors were at the pond, along with a Sandhill Crane that flew right at my niece, making her duck and cover, just one of those great times you wish you had a helmet cam. We'd also seen Moose, Elk, Deer, Trumpeter Swans, Osprey, Eagles, Sandpipers, Beaver, Muskrat, the most colorful Swallowtails I'd ever seen, and a list I could continue here for some time. Even though she hadn't seen the Bear she desperately wanted too, she was simply overwhelmed and in awe. In our 14th mile of hiking that day she and I were exhausted and ready to sleep like logs as the last of the sun was consumed by the clouds across Jackson Lake and over Bivouac Peak at 9 PM, we were a half a mile short of the Trailhead.

Suddenly from behind the cover just 20 yards or so to our left, West, was a rustle and sound of vocal predatory surprise. She quickly gave me a forceful "Uncle John!" whisper and tug on my pack to make sure I'd heard it. Although I knew better I told her not to worry, that it was probably an Elk or a Deer. An instant later as the very last of the long day's light was filtering through the Lodge-pole Pines all around us in front and to the left of us a golden mass suddenly bolted up the line of trees. It was almost like looking at a silent era movie, trees acting like film frames as the Bear bolted away from us. After passing two dozen or so of the branchless tree trunks the Bear stopped and turned to look at us. She was a +/- 400 pound sow Grizzly. With my Bear Spray out and the safety off I was expecting the bear to just move off into the forest. The expectation was realistic, but wrong in this case. After violently tearing up an old log the sow moved perpendicularly to us and onto the trail 25 yards in front of us. She moved as if to head up the trail ahead of us but instead stood on her hinds and shook her backside at us before dropping back to the ground and turning her profile to us. I had my niece behind me and one of my ski poles stretched out in front of me. With some distance still between us I waved the pole and drove it into the ground beside me. With the recently freed hand I unbuckled my pack's waist and breast belts and lifted the pack high above my head to make myself appear larger. That did the trick, and as the bear trotted off we backpedaled down the trail and then made our way over to the trail on the lakeshore. Having seen some folks at Swan Lake just a few minutes previously I yelled BEAR! seconds after she was clearly out of the area. We had been up for almost 17 hours, but we were as awake as either of us had ever been.

I had had a few enormous Brown Bears stand up in front of me in Alaska and thrown rocks to send curious Black Bears on their way, but never had any Bear "talked" to me quite like that golden Hermitage Point Hunnie did that dusk of that hot July evening. We called a Ranger and made a report, and by the summer of 2004 the trail had been rerouted from the area of our encounter when I took a nephew out on the point. I think that the Park Service almost always does a wonderful job, right now they do not have the complications of a multiple use mission that the Forest Service does. I encourage you and your friends to do what you can to discourage the Bush Administration and its Congressional allies from redefining the Park Service's Mission as they've sought too thus far. I sure would hate to have a Monorail out onto something like Hermitage Point, a place that is a sensational Serenghetti of Wyoming as it is.

The pictorial description at the trailhead had advised caution of Black, not Grizzly Bears. In 2003 I believe that sign was replaced. It took my niece and I quite some time to get to sleep at the campground that night. I was still capable of being a very heavy beer drinker in those days and lets just say they went down fast and easy that late evening and earliest morning. There is actually a lesson to be learned here that might get me into even more trouble with the women that know me. The following paragraphs are heavy on opinion, for dealing with bears and any large predatory animals more often than not comes down to matters of opinion.

This niece's parents are about as educated as they come. Having dealt with another brother's daughter at that age 6 or 7 years previously I had a legitimate concern taking a 13 year old girl a half dozen miles out a large, remote Wyoming peninsula. I appealed to their reason and begged them to drive it into their daughter's head that when out in the bush with Uncle John that Uncle John absolutely, positively had to know what time of the month it was for her. When a girl begins to menstruate it is something many of us just don't want to talk about, especially a 13 year old with an Uncle she sees all too infrequently. Usually the concerns of a young girl's cycle are not life threatening in nature. In Grizzly country they most certainly can be in the understanding this experience persuasively reinforced for me. When packing up the jeep the following morning I put the previous day's laundry together and her blood soaked cotton panties slipped out of the pile of clothes she brought from her tent. She'd meant to throw them away, but a groggy girl in the morning after a thrill filled evening can forget little things like that. I expressed to someone the other day that never had any bear acted so aggressively with me. In my humble opinion the reason for that aggression was a 13 year olds fear of embarrassment. That niece was a trooper, she was going to see the Wyoming I'd given her fantasies of whatever happened. I love her for that and so much more, and rest assured she will never make the same mistake again.

I qualified my opinion as humble above because there are certainly several overlapping schools of thought on how to interact or not interact with Bears. My experience with Bears is actually somewhat limited. I've made a lot of Canadian friends on the internet over the last year and I'm sure several of them will add substance to any discussion. Some people say you should get down on your stomach with your hands on the back of your head with arms tight around the sides of the head and play dead right away, others as a last resort. Some say to fight back, particularly at night, with every atom of your being. Some, and the last I saw the US Forest Service among them, contend that a woman's menstruation is not a serious concern in Grizzly Habitat. Without delving into the many sides of every concern when it comes to interacting with Bears right here and now I will simply say that my sensibilities rely on four basic resources when it comes to my enjoyment of Bear country: 1) The common sense my family was kind enough to instill the youngest of its generation with. 2) The empirical sense from my time in Grizzly country. 3) The common sense of those that have traveled Bear country that I have come to respect. 4) The informed sense of Bear Behaviorists like Steven Hererro. In my opinion "Bear Attacks" is the best bear book there is.

Now those of you that have seen my black bear photograph from Grand Teton National Park must be rolling an eye right about now. I was quite close, but I did not pursue that little guy. Although just 14' away he was out my parked car window. At 8' my then 270 pound lunged yell and the jeep's horn sent him back deeper into the trees with alarmed alacrity. He'd followed me in to the trailhead for sometime, and I constantly turned around to remind him to keep his distance. When I packed up the jeep I talked to him, kept him out in the trees away from my beer and Doritos. After packing up and looking at my map for a few minutes in the front seat there he was again, strolling right back to me. Sadly he had become habituated to seek out humans. I believe in the neighborhood of two dozen black bears had to be destroyed in Grand Teton National Park that summer of 2002. I will always wonder whether my little buddy was one of them or not. There is a great bumper sticker that speaks to the issue of human stupidity. It says: "Garbage Kills Bears."

There is an enormous difference between the animal portrayal the media and the reality of animals in the wild. Despite soft drink commercials and holiday suggestions and although many of them spend much of their lives on Ocean ice, Polar Bears are arguably the land animal to be most feared anywhere on the planet. Brown Bears and the Grizzlies of the North American interior aren't terribly far behind. Although I am personally more cautious with Mountain Lions, Black Bears have proven worthy of the same cautious respect any Bear or large predator is.

Grizzlies in Yellowstone and the Intermountain West are in reality but another victim of misunderstood stereotype. We hear of maulings but rarely hear the human error that fueled the confrontation to begin with. You'll notice I didn't call these Grizzlies carnivores. That's because they're not. Unlike their Brown Bear Brothers, coastal Grizzlies that grow to monstrous size because of the slamon and other abundant animal protein in their diet, these interior Grizzlies rely on plants and insects for perhaps 80 % of their own diets in my understanding. Buttercups, the cones of the White Bark Pine, etc. can fill their bellies to the tune of more than 40 pounds a day. Up and down the spine of the northern Rockies biologists can fly over incredibly remote high mountain talus fields and spot perhaps a dozen Bears turning over lichen covered boulders, gorging themselves on prolific Army Cutworm moths. And I'll need to check how much of their mammalian protein is scavenged, I know it is actually quite high.

In short, Grizzlies are not the blood thirsty monsters our popular culture purports them to be. I have not seen this Bear movie about Timothy Treadwell but I will weigh in on Mr. Treadwell with what I know quite briefly. However noble some of you might perceive the motivations of Mr. Treadwell were in his attempt to live amongst Bears I'd suggest that they were at a minimum poorly grounded. He broke the cardinal rule of dealing with wild animals of any kind, he didn't leave that wildlife alone. In fact, he was confrontational. He camped at the junction of two known and heavily used Bear thorofares. In trying to "live" with the them you might consider the possibility that he was actually, and perhaps self-servingly, trying to humanize these half ton masters of the high country that would be better off far more cautiously respected.

I'll let experts like Mr. Hererro actually suggest what you should do in Bear country. So, anything I've said aside, wherever you go come to know the risks posed by those who's living room you will be walking through. There are a lot of great books out there. Walking deep into a quasi-complete ecosystem like Greater Yellowstone without a smart or two doesn't make much sense now does it? I humbly suggest we never trivialize rational concerns when it comes to any wilderness.