TRAVEL
GRIZZLY By Jason Wilmoth M y fascination with the griz- zly bear goes back to an adventure climb in the
firearms were readily available and dropped down into the meadow our- selves. Walking through the mead- ow, with looming tree lines on each side, I experienced a guttural fear. I’m going to tell you that the bear was a grizzly, but I’m not sure. I had only ever seen one other bear in the mountains prior to this. I will never forget seeing that bear stand on its hind legs sniffing the wind to identi - fy the two of us who were maybe 200 feet from it on some rocks eating pea- nut butter sandwiches. In the many years since that day, I have adventured in the Selkirks in every manner I could; hiking, rock climbing, whitewater kayaking, can- yoneering and even paragliding in the very spot we saw the bear. I have never seen another grizzly, though I have seen a few black bears off in the distance. I’ve always wondered if I was barely missing them as I hiked the high ridges and along the creek bottoms. Turns out I was, as I would later learn.
Selkirk Mountains. What started as a terrifying close encounter with what I believed to be a grizzly would culminate years later into a method- ical search for this feared bear, once again in Selkirk range. I recall that climb being memora- ble in many ways, but certainly en- countering a bear is at the top of the list. After my buddy Chris Celenta- no and I ascended the mountain, we returned to the base of the climb ex- hausted. While packing up to leave, we watched a large bear exit the tree line below us. The bear paused when it reached the trail, stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air. Not finding anything of interest, it dropped back onto all fours and continued towards the opposing tree line. Chris and I stared at each other for a second in disbelief. We waited a few minutes for the bear to contin- ue moving down river, made sure our
On a trip to Yellowstone in April of 2022, Photographer Joel Riner spotted this Grizzly making it’s way toward a Bison carcass recently uncovered from the thawing winter.
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