'Bear Number 94'

The moment I have been waiting for, arrived in spectacular fashion this afternoon. I had an hour-long encounter with a Grizzly Bear!

I went for an after work fishing trip about 30 KM south from the ranch at Kananaskis Lakes. After I found a spot to park and got down to the lake edge, I had only been fishing about 10 minutes when I spotted something about 300m away down the lake edge. After a moment I realized it was a bear! Fishing immediately became second priority and I snuck up to the bushline and closed the distance to the bear to about 150m. I then just sat down and watched her working her way along the edge of the lake towards me. I was awestruck to be sitting there, in a spectacular valley watching a Grizzly Bear feeding a short distance away. Eventually she worked her way along the shore until she was right in front of me. At this point, for some reason she decided to head up the bank directly towards me.

As I was sitting on a game trail I didn't want to be on her planned route and surprise her, so I stood up and made myself visible to her. Fortunately for my heart rate, she turned back to the waters edge and continued fossicking.

Where else in the world could this be... Rocky Mountains, Forest, Lakes and a Bear:


A good imprint of her tracks with my boot as a reference:


I kept watching her for the next half hour or so as she worked along the edge of the lake and then back along the bushline. I went down to the waters edge to look at her tracks, and she decided to back track at one point so I had to go past her and another man who was taking pictures with a long lens got a couple with both of us in the frame!


Soon a wildlife officer turned up with a radio tracking device and identified her as 'Sow 94' - a 7 year old grizzly sow they have been tracking for a few years.


After the bear was out of sight I went for a little bit more fishing and caught a beautiful Bull Trout - my first Canadian fish and bear sighting in the one evening. What a day!


I also saw a legal Bighorn Ram on the way home (it was about 10pm so the light is pretty low):


On one of my days off last week I trekked up into the mountains behind the ranch which was just fantastic. I love just heading off into the bush by myself and just going where my whim takes me. It would have felt better if I had some binoculars and a rifle in my hands, but it was a great expedition none the less. I also had a sleep in the sun under a tree which was very good. I love cruising through the bush and then just sitting down and going to sleep for an hour or so then keeping on going. I guess that's what I do when I'm hunting, so it may be good connotations that make it so satisfying. I'm always surprised at how comfortable the ground can be!

You can get a good view of the ranch from up there (buildings in foreground) and the 'village' on the other side of the river:


It took me a few hours to get up to the top, but the view of the valley from up there was spectacular:
There was also a surprising amount of snow, particularly in the trees and to get up to the summit I had to wade through knee deep snow for a few hundred meters and it was pretty tough going! When I went right up along the ridge line there was still a cornice several meters out which did no look stable at all - you can see in the picture where the ground finishes and the snow starts - be careful to walk on the solid side!


The back of the mountain was still deep in snow and looked like winter, except that the snow was slushy and heavy.

A happy man solo on top of 'Old Baldy Peak':

On the way back I had a lovely time watching and listening to the bush. I had a funny encounter with a family of chipmunks who were very curious to come and check me out, but never sat still for 5/8 of a second for me to take a good picture. There were also a lot of grouse below the timberline which is nice to see. I only found one bear track, which was a medium sized black bear crossing a game trail, though not particularly fresh.

The wildflowers are also starting to come out on the lower slopes which really makes it feel like springtime:

Watch the edge!