In late 2005, I decided to attempt a winter crossing of Glacier National Park. Besides the obvious obstacles, I had no prior experience in the Park. As a result, I undertook six trips beginning near the end of January 2006 and ending on May 10 with 36 days spent in Glacier’s backcountry. On May 9, I successfully crossed the Continental Divide at Ahern Pass.
Since then I have revisited the Park several times for a total of 106 days spent in the backcountry, 88 during the winter. Although the time I spent in Glacier is in no way a record, all of the trips were solo. Additionally, the two winter series, 2006 and 2011, culminated in a final extreme and dangerous trip.
I have long held that if danger is part of the description of a wilderness, then winter is the wilderness season. It is also when the backcountry is devoid of most people. Park employees describe maintaining the Park as a wilderness. On June 8, 2007, I spent five days in the Belly and Mokowanis River Canyons. Shocked by the number of backpackers, I made this observation to a Park employee. He responded by saying that what I saw was nothing compared to what it would be like in 30 days. Since then I have restricted my visits to the autumn and winter months.
Admittedly, those five days in June had other memories besides crowds. In the upper reaches of Mokowanis River Canyon near Atsina Lake, I saw a distant grizzly cub loping across a small opening on a ridge. Moments later, I spotted the stalwart and unmoving sow; I dropped my load and went about the business of getting some photos. In the time it took to attach the large lens and bring the camera up, I was down to one bear. Back in my office four days later, I discovered the whole truth. That cub turned out to be a sow while the other was a boar grizzly. During the interlude the much larger bear had mounted the smaller one and gotten busy, which solved the disappearance of the second bear. Unfortunately, the distance was too great to get a quality photo.
The winter trips are dangerous. This website is no endorsement for traveling in that season, much less alone. It is what I do, but in no way dispels the good advice of traveling with others. In the five incidents where I have almost lost my life in the Park, three would have held less peril if there had been others present.
