The Longest Day

When: October 2007
Where: Yellowstone National Park, west of West Thumb

Toward the end of the season, we were on our last set of bear tracks to follow before the collars were programmed to drop off. We had finished most of the bears, so one of my last weeks on the job, we decided to team up (usually we worked in three pairs of two people) to tackle a particular bear's data. There were quite a few we needed to visit, and they were all somewhat far in the backcountry on the west side of West Thumb, north of the main road that headed from West Thumb to Old Faithful.

So, five of us (minus Shannon, who lived in Livingston and was home with her husband) headed out early in the morning to start: me, the two guys (Justin and Gabe), Jenn (the boss), and Caryn.

We knew it would be a long hike in, and we hoped to arrive at the first set of points before 11:00 am so we could have a few hours to collect the data and still make it back to the truck before nightfall. Things went well at first; the first part of the trip was through a logdepole forest, fairly flat, following a small stream that eventually led us into a broad, wide meadow.

We could see for quite a distance in this meadow, and the best part was that the entire length of it went directly where we needed to go. It meant easy walking - no deadfall and no topography.

Not long after we left the trees and started the trek across the golden grassland, I noticed something dark in the distance, directly in our path in the meadow, just before the open space appeared to plunge back into thick forest - probably half a mile, maybe more, from where we were. I kept my eye on it as we got closer. From this distance I figured it was probably a downed tree, or maybe even a moose. It was large, whatever it was.

Time passed and we continued to move toward the edge of the meadow, toward the unknown dark object. We were making good time, laughing, trying to keep the boys from outpacing us girls too badly. When we did our two-person hikes, Justin and Gabe were hardly ever paired together - apparently the two guys constantly (albeit subconsciously) competed with each other with regard to their pace, and both were too stubborn to say anything about it; and so they would return to camp absolutely exhausted at the end of the day.

When we were perhaps 200 yards or so from the edge of the meadow - and the mysterious dark object - a slight movement made me instantaneously freeze and call out, "Hey!" and instinctively fling out my arms to stop the people walking beside me. Simultaneously, Gabe pointed; he had also been keeping an eye on it. The dark object apparently had a head, which it had raised as we got closer. Everybody had halted. We stood abreast, waiting for the thing to make another move, mostly so we could tell what it was and where it planned to go (the latter part considerably more important once we figured out the former).

We didn't have to wait long. After regarding us for a short moment, the thing stood up, raised its enormous bulk onto four squat, but very powerful, grizzled brown legs, turned around, and loped into the trees just behind it.

There was no doubt that this enormous beast was the hugest grizzly bear any of us had ever seen in Yellowstone.

And it had run directly along the path that we were hoping to take.

Not to be deterred, we consulted our topographic maps and decided to veer right and make a wide loop around where the grizzly had entered the forest. It would definitely add some distance to our route, but it seemed wisest to give the bear a wide berth. It was, after all, not just a grizzly bear, but a huge grizzly bear.

We picked up the pace, knowing that our nightfall deadline was now slightly in jeopardy with our longer walk. Jenn recalled the few moments it had taken for the bear to get up and move after it raised its head to look at us. Counting us, she said. "One, two, three, four, five...OK, I'm outta here," she narrated. I think we were glad we hadn't stuck to the two-person regime this time. An appetizer for a bear like that (if bears regularly ate humans, that is).

By the time we reached the first set of GPS points, our 11:00 am deadline had come and gone. We needed to hustle. There were 2-3 points to investigate within a relatively short area here, but another point lay almost a mile further, through considerably less friendly terrain - older forest, which meant lots of undergrowth and decaying deadfall, not to mention bigger, steeper hills.

Because of the time crunch, we decided to split up. Jenn delegated Justin and Gabe - the competitive, stubborn, tough guys - to race over to get the further point as fast as they could, while she and Caryn would stay behind and collect the data for the points here. But what would they do with me?

I knew what the answer would be. I pride myself in keeping in shape by exercising regularly when I'm not in the field, so once I had gotten used to the altitude and the considerably greater energetic demands for this job, I found that I was able to keep up with Justin fairly well (though I had never been paired with Gabe). I was usually faster than Jenn, Caryn, and Shannon.

Thus, Jenn assigned me to accompany Justin and Gabe on their race a mile through the forest, so that the data collection there would go faster.

The race began. Maybe I could keep up with Justin, but I certainly couldn't keep up with the pace created by the subconscious man-contest going on between him and Gabe. I was practically running to keep up with them, stubbing my toes on half-hidden rocks and fallen limbs, being poked by spruce limbs and dead aspen branches, desperately trying to keep the boys in view since Justin had the GPS unit.

I've learned that, in terms of tiredness and soreness, hiking long distances and steep hills does not really bother me at the end of the day. What hits me hardest, and causes the most harm to my body, is speed.

By the time we reached the GPS point, my knee (which I'd had surgery on long ago, but which still occasionally caused me some pain) was extremely sore. While Gabe ran around the point looking for evidence of what the bear was eating, Justin filled out the data sheet, and I found a big scat pile and collected some samples. When I guessed I had maybe 30 seconds to spare before we departed, I hurriedly removed my boot and slipped my knee brace over my knee. I had never used it in Yellowstone before now, but had a feeling today's long hike might require it, so I packed it just in case.

Then we were off. Again. The boys raced ahead, and again, I nearly had to jog to keep up. My knee felt better with the brace, and I picked up a makeshift walking stick to help keep my weight off it on the downhills, but I still lagged behind. Once or twice the boys had to stop for a few seconds to wait for me.

We didn't go directly back the way we had come, but veered further south, planning to meet Jenn and Caryn at the meadow, almost exactly where we had seen the bear. I don't remember much of the trip there, but I remember we would be coming into the meadow passing through the exact part of the forest into which the bear had fled. I was too exhausted to be too terribly concerned with meeting the bear, though the idea did encourage me to keep up so I didn't look like a weak straggler.

Eventually we made it. I may have been hoping that we would beat Jenn and Caryn into the meadow, so that I could have a few minutes to rest, but they were there waitung for us. However, I knew that being united again, and knowing that now we were heading home, would mean a slower pace. I limped and struggled along to meet them, while Justin and Gabe discreetly wiped the sweat off their foreheads, stifled their huffing and puffing, and pretended they weren't tired at all.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, I think; in any case, I don't remember much of it, but that might have just been because I was too exhausted. Nobody spoke much. I vaguely remember an incident when we were close to the truck - maybe somebody fell in the little stream as they tried to cross it - but my mind was focused on looking for the first glint of red that would reveal my glorious homebound chariot parked along the road.

Just before we reached the truck, Justin was walking beside me with his GPS unit. "I wonder how far we've walked," he said. He always kept the track log on, so at the end of the season he could see exactly how much of Yellowstone he'd hiked through. I waited, curious but focused more on finding the strength to put one foot in front of the other, while he sifted through the GPS menus.

The hike would have been long to begin with. Then we had the original, unplanned detour around the bear which tacked on some distance.Then we had Gabe, Justin and my speedy foray further west, and the return trip. Most days, our hikes were about 5-10 miles in a day. All told, today's trip was about 22.5 km. Fourteen miles, off-trail, in the backcountry, in about 9 hours.

I slept very well that night.