September 10
We woke up to cold rain falling this morning…not a heavy rain…but a chilly drizzling rain…we could see the snow up on the mountains behind the Palace…didn’t make me very enthusiastic about going into the field. I commented to D that I would be very happy if we didn’t have any bears so we could return to the Palace…start a nice fire and have a full day off. He agreed.
Our first four traps we checked had no bears…not even a tripped snare anywhere. That gave us a glimmer of hope. We headed to our last two snares in Coal Creek and one of them indicated it had been tripped. So…in the pouring rain we drove up to the snare and there was a little black bear staring back at us, looking miserable in the rain…a wet, cold coat and the poor thing had been trapped for who-knows-how-long. So, we turned around and drove down the ridge to call Tim to have him come up. While we waited for Tim, we went to the other snare in the same area to see if the video had anything to show. Something had been into the cubby, gotten bait…but didn’t trip the snare. As I was commenting this fact to D, he was looking at the video and said, “Yeah, it’s a bear.” He was having a hard time telling if it was a griz or a black bear, so I came over and we watched it together and, sure enough, it is a grizzly. I looked at the snare and the way the trigger is set up, it wasn’t releasing the snare…the trigger was hitting the ground before releasing the snare…so, I worked on the set while D fidgeted with his camera setup. I was completely drenched by the time all was said and done. We then went to meet Tim.
Tim showed up about 45 minutes later and we drove up to the site, and as we drove up the rain started to have great big snowflakes mixed in with it. I mixed up the drug for the bear and we went in and I stuck it in the toushie with a syringe-pole and the bear went down pretty quick. It was a really small black bear…maybe 100 pounds. When I went to jab it with the drug, I got a great look at its face…small little eyes on a small little brown face…it had little devil eyes…not mean, but just cute little eyes that said, “I don’t want any trouble, but I’ll getcha if you want me to.” It made me smile…very cute little bear. Once it was fully asleep we discovered it was a little female…my first female black bear! It made me think she was all the cuter. We put a tag in her ear (it’s getting close to black bear hunting season and the Telazol we use to drug them stays in their system for two weeks…so if a hunter kills her, the number in the tag will tell officials, when the hunter comes in with their kill, that they need to inform the hunter that he/she cannot eat the meet for two weeks from the drugging date) and looked at her teeth…she’s 4 years old. We checked her temperature and made sure she was okay. We then laid a tarp on the cold ground under a couple of trees, put her in it and wrapped half of the tarp on her…so she was like a little black bear burrito.
We had talked about the snare below that the griz had not tripped but got bait out of. Tim offered to take a look at what I had rigged up and I thought that was a nice idea, so we went back down to that site and Tim showed me a new way to rig the spring on the snare…then we watched the video of the griz again and I really noticed how small it was. Tim thought its coat was pretty dark and that’s a characteristic of a male, but there are always exceptions. So, hopefully we’ll get that one in a day or two. It’s a pretty bear, it has a really distinctive silver strip on either side of its chest, just behind its shoulder. I wondered I it was the male we caught this spring…our first grizzly catch of the year…but that bear was over 300 pounds and this bear was certainly NOT that big! So…while the coloring could indicate a male griz, size could indicate a female. Let’s hope….
After that, we went our separate way from Tim…drove to West Glacier to gas up and get some groceries…and popcorn for me since it’s a popcorn kinda night! It took us a good hour in town, we had to pick up some stuff from a Park Ranger for Tim, too. We came back to the North Fork and couldn’t help ourselves, we wanted to go back to that snare in Coal Creek and see if that griz had come in…in the hour and a half we had been gone. It was pretty wishful thinking and, of course, all was quiet. We drove back and D fell asleep and I marveled at how low the snow line was getting…almost like I could just run up the hill a few feet and touch the snow!
We stopped at a little store we knew was under new ownership and we wanted to meet the folks and introduce ourselves. They were really nice folks and very welcoming and we ended up staying there a lot longer than planned…and while we were there, the snow began falling…no more rain…it was all snow!
We headed back up to our Palace and, as we climbed the hill that it sits on, the snow line met us…at the Palace the ground had a thin layer of snow on it. We let the pups run while we hooked up the electric fence that surrounds our truck to keep bears out. D took some pictures of them playing in the snow (the pups looooooove the snow!!) and I unloaded stuff. By the time we put the dogs up in the camper and got all of our stuff into the Palace, the snow on the ground had thickened. I immediately took a hot bath to warm my chilled bones and D got a fire started. D has good rain gear…I apparently don’t cuz I was soaked all of the way through.
Here's a picture of the pups in the snow:
This is a beautiful picture of Usko...he's about to pounce on a mouse in the grass...he never gets them...but it's really neat to watch them do this...
This is Fancy looking at us from the snowy grass...
Now we’re sitting and relaxing…the snow is still falling outside, although it’s not accumulating too much…I think the ground is still warm enough that the snow is melting under itself…but there’s still a pretty good accumulation on the grass and such…the trees all have their outer most branches thick with snow. It’s really beautiful…makes me think of Christmas…and it’s only September 10!!!
I don’t know what the forcast is…I thought it was going to rain for a week, but Tim says it will clear up…so we’ll see…we probably won’t have much activity at the snares while it’s like this, so I could go for slightly warmer weather! We’re so glad we don’t have to be in the camper right now, though!!