She was, I thought a little dowdy, but Jane remembered her as passing fair. In later reconstructions, my wife also spoke of her as being blond and, although I didn't openly debate the point, I privately considered that if she was indeed any part blond, it was "dishwater" and not eye-catching. But, then, I've noticed females of all species seem to stick together in opposition to us uplifted males.

The morning was cool; a light drizzle fell as we left camp, but tapered off before we reached our target meadow. We were both alert as we pussyfooted across the flat to drop through scattered trees to the meadow. The hill we descended was not steep, but the game trail we followed was overlain with scattered logs, making silent progress tough and chancy.

Bits and pieces of the target meadow could be glimpsed through branches on our way down; Jane was in the lead, I followed carrying our spotting scope. We were there in hopes of spotting a bear--it was Mother's Day weekend and my wife's idea of a perfect Mother's Day is to see a grizzly bear. Something bugged me about the occasional glimpses of that meadow as we crept down that hill--a low clump of dark brush in mid-meadow. But the clump never moved and I decided I must be imagining things.

Finally we strode past the tree line out onto the meadow; Jane handed me her binoculars and whispered, "Take a look at that clump of brush out just past the second little tree."

I frowned, but recalling that her eyes aren't as sharp as they were at age seventeen, I handed her the folded spotting scope and lifted her field glasses. Then I grabbed her shoulder and dragged her back inside the tree fringe! "It's a bear!" I silently mouthed. "It's lying down with its butt toward us."

She took the glasses, while I fumbled to set up the scope. She shook her head, mumbling, "Are you sure?" I nodded. Soon we peered at the creature through the spotting scope. Even at a couple of hundred yards we could see the hair.

"What is it doing?" Jane said. "It hasn't moved." Just then the bear raised its dish-shaped head (definitely a grizzly) to stare left, then right, before lowering it from our sight.

We made ourselves comfortable, absorbed by the animal. Twice more over the next half-hour, the bear raised its head to stare both left and right, then went back to doing whatever it did. "It has to be eating something," I said. "Or sleeping. But no self respecting bear would select the middle of an open meadow for a day bed."

Forty-five minutes. Still, other than lifting its head two or three times, the bear had not moved. Jane murmured, "This has got to be the most boring bear I've ever watched. It's like staring at a rock." Then the bear stood, shook its damp and matted fur before walking off a few steps to begin feeding on low-growing, broad-leafed forbs. I'll give my wife that the bear was somewhat light colored on the sides, but perhaps the earlier rain had made it appear darker. Occasionally it would gaze around, as if looking for something (there seemed no hint that the bear knew it was being watched). Gradually the grazing bear drifted toward a stand of thick willows bordering a swamp. It drifted into a finger of open meadow thrusting into the willows and disappeared from our sight.

I did a little calculation--by then the grizzly was no more than a hundred and fifty yards from us, but what made it a little dicey was the fact that we could no longer see the animal. I picked up the scope and murmured, "We'd better drift on up the hill."

Jane began climbing. She stopped and pointed. The gain in elevation allowed us an additional view of the bear, still feeding hungrily. Then Jane gasped.

Out of the forest on the other side of the meadow stepped as gorgeous a blond grizzly as anyone could imagine! He (I would bet that it was a "he") walked out obviously searching for something: head up, staring about, striding purposefully, as if on a mission. Both Jane and I were awestruck. Then movement caught our eye: the first bear was running ------ toward us!

The blond bear exploded after what had to be a female. She was running with express train speed when she leaped an intervening gully. He followed with a mighty bound, perhaps twenty-five feet behind. I fumbled for my bear spray and shoved Jane behind a tree, just as the female veered at fifty yards to careen through the open meadow, until disappearing from sight at the far end.

Jane and I shared piano keyboard grins. "What do you think of that?" I murmured, still trying to keep our jubilation unknown from the now departed grizzlies.

"I got to see my Mother's Day bear."

"You realize that was a mating dance, don't you? You got to see a portion of their mating ritual. She was lying in wait for the male bear that she must've known followed her--probably following her scent. That was why she was so boring; she waited for him."

"Then why did she run?"

I smiled. "A woman thing; coy one minute, then hard-to-get the next."

She asked, "Do you feel safe here?"

I shook my head. "Not really. But you know the direction they headed would cross the road at the far end of the lower swamp. Let's go on back to our rig and drive that way; maybe we'll spot them somewhere down there."

So we did, hiking back to our van and driving slowly along the muddy road, watching for tell-tale prints of a couple of runaway grizzly bears. Alas, there were no prints--the bears never crossed the road, which made me glad we'd vacated their meadow.

A couple of miles further on, the road entered another meadow. A herd of elk milled around to watch us as we headed for the river for fresh water to add to the toast we were bent on making to celebrate Jane's Mother's Day bears. The elk were still there when we started back to camp a few minutes later.

As we neared where I'd earlier hoped to again spot our bears, I slammed on the brakes. Clearly in the road were two sets of bear prints that'd not been there a few minutes before. Apparently the bruins plodded side by side toward where we'd originally parked our vehicle. Jane and I studied the prints through the windshield. "See how they walked like they were harnessed together here?" I said. "They're not running, not digging, not flinging dirt or mud behind.. Nope, they're side by side and it's not too hard to imagine 'em taking playful nips out of each other as they stroll along."

Jane nodded. "When did they make up?"

"Somewhere between where we last saw them and here, she must've decided he was much too handsome to discard. So she let him catch her. What happened then seems too delicate to imagine, but I'm guessing the ritual still goes on."

"Is there a chance we'll see them again?"

I nodded thoughtfully. "They obviously walked through here not more than fifteen minutes ago. Perhaps less." I eased the van into gear and we crept on up the road, following the sets of parallel bear tracks. The animals ambled within eight feet of where we'd parked before hiking to the meadow, then they turned and followed our tracks back to where the excitement all began.

Being the lady and gentleman Jane and I pretend to be, we left the bears to their own devices.

 

 

Next week? A walk on the wild side.

Ultimate Montana -