Journal Aug 4th – The Bear Essentials
We were fortunate to have learned about the Northern Rockies Outdoor Center before our trip. Cindy and Kate extended a warm welcome when we arrived in Butte and eagerly agreed to help us out by providing a ride back to the trailhead at Pipestone Pass.
Newly constructed trail made the hiking much more pleasurable, better underfoot, more shade, scenery, sources of water. Except for a couple short connectors, we were on trail for the whole day. The Butte Route is getting better. Clouds kept the day cooler, but never threatened rain. My kind of clouds.
Nice new trail – so new that neither the guidebook nor Jonathan’s maps had any detail for a section of about eight miles. Fortunately the trail was obvious enough and well enough marked that we had no navigational problems.
And, as the day turned to evening, more wildlife. An Elk cow was grazing in a meadow, oblivious to our passing; a Mule deer cow was startled to see us and bounded away.
Late in the day, we rounded one bend and came upon a young Black Bear and two cubs off a short distance, heads down in the tall grass, grazing very intently. The cubs were hanging fairly close to the mom as she was busy eating. The cubs were more interested in playing than eating. One spent a lot of time rolling in the grass, lying backside down, stretched out and pulling itself forward. The bear essentials to happiness – food and back scratching. We watched, snapped a few photos and quietly moved on so as to not disturb, or startle them. They never showed any awareness to our presence………
These animal encounters would have been far less likely, and certainly less interesting, had we been on roads instead of trail.
The clouds cleared off and we continued on, putting a few more miles between the bear feeding grounds and our campsite.
18.2 miles
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