Bear Jam

Okay, so there’s been a lot of talk lately around here about Bear Jams, and I think it’s high time that I addressed it. Granted, the entirety of this talk has been done by me, for the sake of garnishing cheap attention, but I’d like to think that it may, at the very least, yield a kernel of entertainment and/or educational value to my faithful reader(s).

The first thing to talk about is whether it’s possible for me to write an entire entry on Bear Jams without making a joke about four grizzlies in a garage band. At this point, my best guess is no, but we’ll just have to see how it all plays out. Keep your fingers crossed.

So what is a Bear Jam, anyway? Well, it’s something that occurs in Glacier National Park, when a bear is seen on the side of the road and all human activity comes to an instant halt so people can stare at it in disbelief, like it’s either an alien creature or a democrat and a republican getting along.

During Bear Jams, people will stop their cars in the middle of the road to watch, which backs up traffic and generally makes a mess out of an already precarious situation. (There are about two roads total in Glacier, so having traffic come to a halt on any of them is never a good thing.)

Park rangers must hate Bear Jams, because they have to come out and unsnarl them. This means they have to politely-but-authoritatively lecture everybody parking in the middle of the road and get them moving again. However, for everybody they succeed in activating, some other genius quickly takes their place. This goes on until the bear lumbers away or the ranger quits and decides on get a job at the DMV so they can be the one tormenting some poor helpless soul.

My best guess is that any given ranger would rather help empty pit toilets than face a Bear Jam, and also that it's the most junior ranger who always gets stuck handling them:

“Well, Simmons, looks like there’s a doozy of a Bear Jam just down the road. You’d better get on it.”

“Noooooooooo!!!!!!! I’ve handled the last twelve! I can’t do it anymore! I just can’t! It’s the nightmares! They won’t go away!”

“Then you’d better hope we hire somebody new real quick.”

I got to witness a small Bear Jam on my recent trip to Glacier, where a bear had decided to take a nap on a hillside just off of the road. As we drove by, we saw a gaggle of old men standing in a parking lot, staring up into the brush. (I’m not sure if “gaggle” is the correct term for a gathering of old men, but it’s definitely the most fun-sounding.) Intrigued, we pulled into the parking lot and hurried over.

This was when I realized that these old men must basically stake out the roads all day long, waiting for bears to come by. This is because they all had gigantic, state-of-the-art cameras that looked more like futuristic alien weaponry than photography equipment. I’m quite certain that most of them had a powerful enough zoom to get a picture of a bear somewhere in Vermont. (The cameras, not the old men.) Anyway, it was obvious that these cameras weren’t used during hikes. They were set up on the side of the road and sat there all day, only to be used if a bear were to wander by.

As for all of the guys owning an expensive camera, I’m pretty certain it’s a male pride thing. One old guy buys an expensive camera and begins to brag about it to the others. Another guy, annoyed after only several minutes of listening to the incessant prattle, goes out and buys an even more expensive one, so he can simultaneously shut the other guy up and also be the one who now gets to brag. This continues until the entire gaggle of old men are broke and own nothing but cameras, which is why they spend all of their time on the side of the road taking pictures, hoping to later sell them for food.

Anyway, everybody was staring up at the hill, claiming a bear was there. Personally, I saw nothing but an ordinary hill. Finally, somebody pointed out a stand of brush to me and said that the bear was somewhere behind it, taking a nap. As proof, he showed me a picture he’d taken earlier, which was of the bear entering the brush, which had been taken from a rear perspective.

That’s right, he proudly showed me a picture of the bear’s enormous butt. You just can’t ever have enough zoom or megapixels for a picture like that.

By this point the crowd was growing fast, which is what led to the Bear Jam. Cars would drive by and slow down, and the drivers would crane their necks to try to figure out what everybody was looking at. Some rolled down their windows and asked. Soon, cars were beginning to stop. There wasn’t enough room on the shoulder for them to fit, so they’d just park where they were, with eighty percent of the vehicle still firmly located on the road.

Soon a ranger showed up. He drove from car to car, telling them they had to park somewhere less idiotic. The drivers would nod their heads and take off. Soon after, another car would take its place.

Meanwhile, the bear, if there really was one, hadn’t moved and still wasn't visible.

Eventually, we grew sick of looking at the brush where the bear was supposed to be and left. From that point on, we didn’t take part in any more Bear Jams. They were more annoying than anything else. I mean, unless the bears were doing something cool, like playing in a garage band, it just wasn’t worth the hassle. (Dang! Almost made it!)

Glacier Highlights

I have returned from Glacier National Park! Rather than bore you with the gritty details, which I’m much too lazy to write about, I’m going to instead compile a short list of the trip’s highlights, which will be determined using the rigorous scientific selection method of writing down whatever pops into my mind over the next few minutes. Sounds good? Then here we go…

The Day of Eighty Wardrobe Changes: The second hike of the trip was during a windy, rainy day. The rain was intermittent, to the point where it was basically toying with us. It would start to rain, and the rain gear would come out. It would stop raining, and the rain gear would be packed away, since it’s so hot and heavy. Repeat several dozen times or so until you’re pretty certain that somewhere along the line you did something to really tick off Mother Nature.

Going to the Sun Road: It was a wonderful drive, assuming you love sitting in construction and you don’t mind the majestic view of thick, impenetrable fog.

The Sunburn: After several cloudy days, the sun finally came out in full force. I neglected to consider this important meteorological change and went into the next hike wearing a bandana and no sunscreen. The result was that at the end of day, my head resembled a mismatched plastic Easter egg; its cover white and the rest deep red. And no, I did not take any pictures of this.

The Jim Leyland Lookalike: We were hiking the Highline Trail, moving along at a pretty good clip, when out of nowhere this old guy caught up to us. He was eerily reminiscent of Jim Leyland, complete with the sunglasses and moustache, except he seemed much less likely to keep putting Ryan Rayburn into the starting lineup, in the hopes that he might “run into one,” and much more likely to hike along the continental divide for several weeks at a time, wrestling mountain goats into submission for the sheer sport of it. Yup, he was a tough old coot, giving hope to anybody over the age of fifty-five who wants to enjoy an active lifestyle. After chatting with us briefly, he sped off and left us behind in a cloud of dust. This is the only picture I got of him. Somehow, it seems appropriate.

Johnson’s of St. Mary: If you’re ever in St. Mary, located on the eastern side of the park, and you need a place to eat, then stop at Johnson’s. They play nothing but old school country music. They have phenomenal homemade bread. They display customer sign in/comment sheets from the 70’s up until the present at the tables. They have excellent soup. They sell something called Ice Cream Pie, which weighs about fifty pounds and is as big as a mature pumpkin. It’s worth going there just to see the eyes of somebody when it’s placed down in front of them at their table. Their expression is basically one of I-think-I'm-in-heaven-even-though-there’s-no-way-I’m-eating-all-of-this-without-getting-a-stomach-ache-that’ll-last-for-roughly-a-week-and-possibly-dying.

Huckleberry Everything: Huckleberries are pushed everywhere in the park: huckleberry soda, huckleberry jelly beans, huckleberry stuffed French toast, huckleberry ice cream, huckleberry t-bone steak, etc.

Bear Jams: More on that later, assuming I remember to write it.

The Polite Bighorn Sheep: It was patiently waiting for a turn at the outhouse:

"Hey, I'm next in line, buddy!"



Learning that bear bells have an approximate operating radius of three feet: This was done through a scientific process consisting of us constantly not hearing other hikers’ bear bells until they were right up in our proverbial grills. So as long as you don’t mind a bear not being able to hear you until you’re basically sitting on its dinner plate, bear bells are a wise purchase. In addition, they are also incredibly annoying, making it sound like Santa Claus is perpetually coming to town. Even if they were effective, I’d rather be eaten by a bear than hike in a group with somebody wearing them.

This sign:

This Realization: No matter how good the trail mix tastes for the first three-quarters of the trip, there still comes a time when you instantly begin to hate it and simply can’t eat another bite.

The official group photo for the trip:

 

Oh right, and some OK scenery: