Opportunistic bears climbing in windows

The Big Sky area is suffering a rash of break-ins this summer.
Blame the recent hot weather.
Most residents of the tony development near Yellowstone National Park don’t have air conditioners and have been leaving doors and windows open during the record heat wave that’s baked Montana since late June.
In an effort to stop the break-ins, three repeat offenders were even put to death.
But the criminal activity continues, says game warden Joe Knarr with Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
“They go house to house until they find an open window,” says Knarr, who’s investigated dozens of break-ins at Big Sky since the beginning of July.
It’s not thieves rifling through the silverware drawer, however, that have Big Sky residents on edge. Instead, it’s opportunistic black bears climbing through windows looking for food.
So far, no one’s gotten hurt, but nine bears have been trapped and three euthanized.
Like the saying goes: “a fed bear is a dead bear.”
And while the problem in Big Sky hasn’t been tied to improperly stored dog food and bird seed or a lack of bear-proof garbage containers, the solution is even simpler: lock the windows and doors.
If it’s too hot, buy an air-conditioner. This is, after all, a community of second homes. Residents should be able to handle the extra expense.
Regulations concerning garbage storage and collection are already in effect at Big Sky, but Knarr says with so many rental units there, guaranteeing a constant influx of newcomers, a lot of folks don’t understand the do’s and don’ts of living in bear country.
A similar problem in the Rattlesnake area near Missoula a few years ago resulted in the euthanization of 15 bears and the relocation of 30 others.
Efforts to educate residents there reversed the situation.
But as more and more people move into bear country and the number of bruins increases, problems are sure to persist.
Newcomers need keep their urban edge when they arrive in the last, best place. Just like at home, lock the doors and windows, don’t leave anything out in the yard untended and participate in neighborhood watches.
However, unlike at home, report any bear sightings and get to know your neighbors.
These aren’t your typical thieves and the solution to the problem lies in getting rid of the temptation, not in locking up the offenders.
Montana’s abundant wildlife, clean air and safe environment continue to attract new residents. Unless they’re careful, the Big Sky state will become a lot more like where they came from and less and less like where they thought they were headed.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

One step at a time

My father died in a fall last winter.

His demise was frequently on my mind as I picked my way across 90 miles of trail through the Bob Marshall Wilderness earlier this month with two friends.

I didn’t want to suffer a similar fate and end up at the top of the page.

Not that there was much chance of slipping in the bathroom and hitting my head on the sink like Dad did.

But there was certainly the risk of a fall.

I’m of that age group now where falls are a leading cause of death. So I watched my step and stayed on my feet. Especially when the trail crossed a particularly steep slope and the whole world, it seemed, dropped into the abyss below me.

Outdoors columnist stumbles on wilderness trail, plunges to his death

I only needed rescuing once. Foolishly crossing the White River without a wading staff near the end of a long day, I was having trouble maintaining my balance in the stiff current.

Grandfather swept away in raging torrent, feared dead

Luckily, Ben, who had crossed ahead of me, looked back and saw my plight. He dropped his pack, returned to the river and gave me a hand.

If given a choice, always hike with younger, stronger companions.

Just make sure you keep up.

After losing our way along the base of the spectacular Chinese Wall, I lost sight of Ben and Erik as we searched for the trail. Bushwacking through the sub-alpine terrain, I nearly stumbled into the excavation a grizzly had made digging up ground squirrels.

Montana man falls in hole, eaten by bear

Whistling loudly, I caught up with my companions and kept them close the rest of the trip.

Erik fell once when he stepped on the outside edge of the trail across a sidehill and it gave way. He dropped to the ground with one leg bent beneath him, gathered himself and regained his feet.

Had I taken that fall, I doubt my recovery would have been as smooth as Erik’s.

Former newspaperman crippled after trail accident

Eight days of putting one foot in front of the other, up and down switchbacks, across rivers and over deadfall, through mud and brush, hopping from one rock to another without a single fall.

I tried to pay attention even when I was exhausted, take care when I wanted to hurry and rest when I’d reached the end of my rope.

The pounding took a toll on my joints and I used half a roll of first aid tape on my blisters, but I didn’t become another statistic.

Aging hiker falls off face of the Earth

I survived the wilderness relatively unscathed. Now If I can just remember to watch my step in the bathroom.

Hike left me craving more than basics

I lack for little.
Happily married, well-fed and clothed, I sleep in a comfortable bed, turn up the thermostat when I’m cold and step into the shower when I’m dirty.
If I crave ice cream, beer or fried pork rinds, the grocery’s just down the street. An all-night convenience store a few blocks away conveniently satisfies my hunger for pizza and doughnuts at any hour of the night.
For the past week, however, I’ve been unable to satisfy those cravings. On an extended backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness, I’m carrying everything I need on my back.
And everything I need certainly doesn’t include everything I want.
An ice cold bottle of beer would sure taste good about now. So would a bowl of Cherry Garcia ice cream.
Wilderness travel reduces life to the bare essentials. Food becomes little more than fuel, a tiny tent offers shelter from the elements and comfort comes on a long stretch of downhill trail.
A dog-eared paperback takes the place of cable television and instant oatmeal replaces bacon and eggs.
Cold? Throw another log on the fire.
Wet? Get used to it.
Come the end of the trip, there will be cravings to satisfy for sure. Fresh fruit, potato chips, milk shakes, meat.
Years ago I worked for an outfitter in Cooke City. Following weeks living in a tent high in the Beartooth Mountains I would head to the general store to indulge myself as soon as I got back to town.
However, it’s been years now that I’ve spent much time in the wilderness, years that I’ve been able to satisfy even the simplest craving, peppermint patties and bottled water seemingly always at my fingertips.
This time I want to do things differently. After a week of living simply, I hope to be able to show a bit of restraint, continue doing without some of those things I’ve found I don’t actually need.
Like an Indian mystic returning from a vision quest, I would like to come back wiser, kinder, more patient.
But who am I kidding. About now, I’d die for a cheeseburger, sell my soul for a popsicle and trade this backpack and everything in it for one night in a comfortable bed.
For sure, instant oatmeal, jerky and powdered drink mix won’t be on my menu anytime soon. Certainly not once I return to the land of indulgence, where cheese nachos and a Dove bar are seldom more than a few blocks away.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

Dreading that second can of bear spray

I recently purchased my first can of bear spray.
Hopefully, it’s my last.
Buying another would mean I had occasion to use it, and although that’s not something I relish, it would offer proof the first can worked.
Upon hearing I was planning a week-long backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness, a friend suggested I bring along a sawed-off shotgun.
“Lots of grizzlies up there,” he told me. “Lots of grizzlies.”
“I’m packing bear spray,” I said.
My friend laughed.
So did I.
“Good luck,” he said, shaking his head.
A lot of outdoor folk, hunters and horse packers foremost among them, have little confidence in bear spray. Given a choice, they’d prefer a shotgun or hand cannon.
I’d prefer to run. Not that I can outrun a grizzly, but like the old joke goes, I just have to run faster than you.
Unfortunately I don’t have the wheels I used to and I’m the slowest guy on this trip.
Still, I didn’t actually buy the bear spray. My wife did after telling me I couldn’t go on the trip without it.
Had it been left up to me, I would have skipped the spray and packed more food. That can must weigh as much as four bags of jerky.
And I never considered carrying a firearm on the trip. Unless the weapon was in my hands or on my belt ready for a quick-draw it probably wouldn’t do me much good anyway.
I’ve experienced a number of close encounters of the grizzly kind both armed and unarmed. I ran into a pair of young grizzlies a few years ago while elk hunting. They answered my cow call at close range and the big game rifle in my hands offered little comfort as we all stared at each other from 50 feet.
The tree I climbed to avoid a big boar in Yellowstone Park was considerably more comforting than any rifle.
I spotted the grizzly on a game trail through the snow and he charged as soon as I reached for my camera. I climbed like a monkey 20 feet up the closest tree.
Another bear I surprised on an elk carcass in the sagebrush raced off at my approach, then stopped and watched me slowly back downhill away from him.
Had I been packing bear spray in any of those instances, I doubt my behavior would have been much different. But I’m sure the can would have been in my hand.
I’ve read enough stories about charging bears being turned away by pepper spray to believe the stuff works. I just hope I never have to buy that second can.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

Time to dig out that old backpack

There’s a map on the wall in my house of Isle Royale National Park. A friend and I hiked 60-some miles carrying backpacks from one end of the island to the other 35 years ago.
The map is just another souvenir from back in the day.
And now that I’m 55, I worry a bit that I spend too much time reminiscing about back in the day and not enough time living this one.
But when I was recently invited on a 10-day backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness this summer with a couple of younger buddies, I still hesitated.
“Let me check the calendar,” I told Ben when he called.
As if I had something else to do.
To be honest, I found the trip a little daunting.
I gave up backpacking for horse packing shortly after that trip to Isle Royale and except for a couple of extended hikes to sheep-hunting camps in the Beartooths in the mid ‘70s, I hadn’t toted much on my back since.
It didn’t take long, though, before I decided to accept the invitation.
I’d never seen the Bob and this invite sure beat the ones I’ve been getting lately from AARP.
Anyway, I figure I have at least one kick-ass trip left in me. If not, this will be a good opportunity to find out I don’t.
I called Ben back and said count me in.
Then I jumped on my bike and started pedaling. There’s a hill south of town that I’m becoming very familiar with in an effort to avoid being embarrassed on the trip by Ben and Erik, who are both younger than my backpack.
I still have the old school external-frame model I ordered out of an Eddie Bauer catalogue back when Eddie Bauer billed itself as an expedition outfitter and not a trendy fashion outlet.
More difficult than getting in shape, however, is wrapping my head around a trip of this length.
I considered doing it as a vision quest, wearing nothing but a loin cloth and packing no food or sleeping bag, but that idea was quickly vetoed.
Erik seemed to think it was simply a ploy to get him and Ben to carry all the gear, and he was more than a little uncomfortable at the idea of following me up the trail while I was wearing a loin cloth.
This younger generation has no imagination.
So in order to keep on truckin,’ I’ll just have to put one foot in front of the other and carry my own load. It’s been a while, but I’ve done it before.
Maybe in another 35 years I’ll tire of looking at a map of the Bob Marshall Wilderness on my wall.
I can only hope.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

On-line hunting tags not so easy

I was feeling so tech savvy flying around the globe on Google Earth.
Visiting South America.
Looking in on my childhood home in Indiana.
Checking out the breaks on Frenchman Creek where I hunt in the fall.
Then I logged on to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Web site to apply for my antelope and elk tags and was quickly brought back to Earth.
Or reality.
Whatever. My computer ineptness returned in an instant to bite me on the … application.
“Did you confirm your ALS number with the computer?” the woman who answered the phone at the FWP help line asked me.
“Huh?” I thought. “How do you confirm something with a computer?”
“And how would I do that?” I replied in as nice a voice as possible.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line and I thought I heard muffled laughter.
It used to be so easy. I would wait until the very last minute, fill out an application for the special tags I wanted, sign my name at the bottom and get it in the mail by June 1.
Sometime in August the results would be mailed to me.
A number of years ago the online option became available. I resisted at first preferring old-school snail mail, but decided to give it a try after an incorrectly filled out application was returned to me and I wasn’t able to hunt antelope that fall.
One big advantage of applying online is that if there are any errors on the application the process will be stopped and you won’t be able to proceed until the problems are remedied.
And there will be errors.
Every step of the way it seems.
At least on my part.
Like the wrong Automated Licensing Service number, a missing digit in my home phone number or the omission of my country of residence.
All of those errors were pointed out to me in red type at the top of the screen, an uncomfortable flashback to my school days.
But I was able to correct every error on my own except one – the ALS number. The longer I looked at it, the more I was convinced I had the right number and FWP didn’t.
Of course I was wrong.
After the nice lady at the FWP help line pointed that out I finished my application with no more trouble.
Until, of course, I tried to print the receipt for the tags I had purchased, including $2.31 for a “convenience fee.” My computer locked up and I got a “not responding” message.
Oh well, it’s done and now all I can do is wait.
Come August I may even try to “confirm” my success in the drawing.
It’s so convenient I could scream.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

No mistaking odor of bat guano

MALTA -- Ahhh, the smell of spring.
I was in the garage last week gathering my fishing gear for a trip to the reservoir east of town, visions of a walleye dinner coursing through my mind, when I got the first whiff.
Whew.
There’s no mistaking the unique odor of bat guano.
I put the spinning rod back on the rack and picked up a hammer. The walleye would have to wait. In a few weeks the bats will be back and I still had holes to plug.
After awakening from a long slumber inside caves in the Little Rocky Mountains south of here, the northernmost colony of migrating little brown bats will return to town.
And more than a few of them will be headed directly to my place where odor of their past inhabitance is unmistakable.
I suspect my wife, Barb, and I got such a good deal on the house we bought here a couple of years ago because of the number of dead bats that littered the inside.
Vacant for a number of years before we moved in, our two-story stone house built in 1915 had enough holes in it to make it a very popular summer destination for members of the colony.
Following months of renovation, the house is now relatively bat-proof, but the garage is not. Sitting on the deck at night last summer, I watched as bats, squeaking eerily, came and went through a hole under the eaves.
Not wanting to trap them to die inside the attic, I decided to wait until they left town before covering all the cracks and holes in the garage with trim.
Then came hunting season when all work is put on hold.
Then came winter when it was too cold to work outside.
And then I forgot about them until spring when I was greeted by the odor of guano and forced to cancel my fishing trip.
Fortunately this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve lived with wild animal issues before. In Kentucky a family of skunks took residence in the crawl space under my house. In Cooke City black bears raided the beer fridge on the porch of my cabin.
I’m hoping a lack of access to the dark recesses of my garage will persuade the bats to roost elsewhere.
If not, well, I may just have to adjust.
An elderly couple, who used to live down the street, wielded tennis racquets at night while watching television to fend off any bats that dared disrupt their favorite shows.
Come to think of it, my backhand could use some work.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net