This is the version not for Mom’s ears.
We were nearing the end of our hike today and moving along a narrow trail above the lake shore line. There was quite a bit of traffic on the trail so no one was really too stressed about bears. Watchful but not overly concerned. Guess what…wrong.
Kent grabbed my arm. “Wait” he said. The people in front of us are moving way to fast and watching behind themselves. Sure enough, the grizzly was following them down the trail at a pretty quick pace. They disappeared around the curve in the trail and must have broken into a run as soon as they were out of the bear’s line of sight. We saw them down on the beach not long after. The bear followed the trail out of sight too. “Now what?” We wait. All of a sudden there seems to be no one else on the trail and we don’t know whether the bear has moved on or is hanging out around the corner. We wait. A kayaker has been watching as have about six or eight people with binoculars on the beach. They watch the bear. We watch them. Finally they all seem to loose interest and the kayaker says the bear is not longer in sight. We take that as a good sign and begin to move on, loudly. We walked and watched and did a lot of talking and emerged on the beach unscathed with not another glimpse of the bear. I suspect he had simply moved on in his berry search never giving any of us humans another thought. That was a closer encounter than I really needed.

Blue sky, bright sunshine, cold blue waters and lots of wildlife. We finally had a day of good weather to head out to the Many Glaciers area of the park. I think the animals must have known it was Holiday weekend and they had a big audience.
Bears: Four of them. A cinnamon black bear sauntering along a quiet pool feasting on berries and ignoring the world. A young grizzly bear walking the trail in among hikers, it must have been the easiest way to get from berry patch to berry patch. A glossy-black black bear working its way through a berry field high on the mountain side. Another (or maybe the same) cinnamon black bear crossing and re-crossing the road in front of us.
A moose: peacefully strolling and munching away; paying us no mind. We saw it first in the shallows then as we watched it moved into deeper and deeper water on its quest for yummy underwater morsels.
Sheep and goats: oh yes, we saw them again and thoroughly enjoyed the goats’ cliffside antics.
The lakes were beautiful. There were falls and lots of little streams to cross. There was a REALLY swingy swinging bridge. It moved A LOT right to left and I had to hang on and stop in the middle to let it calm down so I could get across. Fun.

Two Medicine, lush, green, lake dotted valley floors that seem to splash up the rugged mountainsides that surround them. We checked out this section of Glacier including one of their signature hikes, Dawson Pass. The pass is at 7500 feet and the views into the two valleys are spectacular. We found ourselves looking down to see the sheep and goats. That was cool. They certainly are better adapted to this terrain, the climb (2450 feet gain) and altitude than we are. We are inching up our hike lengths to build stamina for the Grand Canyon hike. This one was 13.7 miles. We were pretty whipped at the end of the day but recovered nicely by morning.