We had just gotten out of the woods on our hike, I started scanning the slopes on either side of us. I would say about eighty or ninety meters away from us were two large, dark-like objects. I thought, those can’t be rocks. We stopped so I could take my binoculars out and have a look. As soon as I got them in focus, I could see two young grizzly bears. Both were sitting back and looking around. They looked to be three years of age. I wondered if they were two cubs that were pushed away from their mother this year and were going to spend a year or two together before going their separate ways. A minute later, I saw something moving below them behind a tree. It was a large grizzly. It was their mother. She looked at us for a few seconds and went about her business. Then they moved into the trees near her, with her cubs right behind her.
Our hiking plan was to continue walking away from the general area, and that’s what we ended up doing. Looking in their general direction a few times with no luck of seeing them again. All three looked very healthy. The mother had done a good job of gaining the weight they needed to survive the coming winter. We could see she had been digging in the area for roots, a lot of work for the much needed calories. Until it's time to sleep, the search for calories will continue. October is the month when most bears will go to sleep for the winter. It was not a good berry season in the valley in some of the places this year, and not much better higher up. The bears had to move around to find food elsewhere they needed. This mother, with experience behind her, knew where to go to find the food she and her cubs needed. She would be passing this knowledge on to them so they could survive on their own. And one or both were females, they would know how to look after their cubs one day.
