I’ve heard over and over that there are grizzlies at Glacier National Park. I didn’t doubt it. But, what are their numbers really?

I still can’t answer that question. However, I did see two yesterday, on the drive into the Many Glaciers area of Glacier National Park.

They were about 150 yards from the road (that’s why my photo is of poor quality). There was no danger. They were completely uninterested in the other cars pulled over, with people popping out to photograph them. This included me.

I’d never seen grizzlies in the wild before. I can’t articulate why people get so excited about seeing wild animals like this – which includes me. Maybe it’s because they evince a genuine wildness to nature we forget about within civilization.

But why then does raw, genuine wildness excite us? Good question.

Anyways, after seeing those 2 grizzlies, it did create concern while on yesterday’s trail to Iceberg Lake. I do have bear spray, and several knives. But, those beasts are quite capable of killing you dead, even with such precautions.

It seems the best precaution is a firearm, which I didn’t bring with me. Yesterday’s trail made me think of a recent conversation with a man from Montana who has seen grizzlies most of his life, and corrected my understanding of them a bit.

Our conversation ensued to me saying, “Well, why can’t you just shoot one between the eyes with a .45? Wouldn’t that put him one down??”

He said that their skulls are so thick that a .45 would just piss him off. He said the best area to target a grizzly is the nose, because it’s only cartilage that would block a bullet to their brain. That made sense.

It’s not that I am looking to shoot one. But it is better to know such a thing than not.

The Montana man further elaborated by saying your best gun is the one you can shoot perfectly straight with, and if that’s a .22, that would be just fine, because a .22 will penetrate that cartilage too.

I then instantly thought of my friend named Ben who’s got beautiful .22 pistols with clips that can hold like 30 magnum rounds, and, now, I think that’s the gun I’d most like to have with me in grizzly country.

But whatever. I’m still going to hike, like the hundreds and hundreds of others who go down these Glacier trails without guns.