Mendenhall Campground

It was a rainy, dismal day that we spent reading, organizing supplies, and editing photos. It was such an uneventful day that we pretty much decided not to bother with a blog.

However, after lunch we made a quick trip out to tend to some housekeeping chores. When we returned, we found life had become more interesting. When we entered the campground all of the sites between ours and the road had yellow “Police line Do not enter” tape on them. Our tenting neighbors were gone which surprised us as they had planned to stay until Wednesday. Soon the camp host came to our door and explained that bear traps were being set up in the site next to us. We assume that our neighbors had been asked to move and that these were the bears we had seen yesterday as we came off our hike at West Glacier. The host asked that we call him, “any time in the night,” if we heard a door on the trap close. As you can see, the traps are on wheels, so if the bears are caught, they will be wheeled away to a location where people aren’t camping.

Wildlife we have seen from inside the van, even on rainy days: Beaver (2 of them), ducks (mother with four babies), eagle (both mature and immature dive-bombing the ducks), lots of small birds, and maybe black bear. We did see these bears yesterday about a mile from here. Not to mention a steady stream of campers in vehicles and on foot, usually gazing at our van on the way by.

Even a rainy day has some excitement. We leave here early (5:00 AM) tomorrow for our last ferry ride.

-- Janet (text) and David (photos)