Glacier & Badlands Trip-getting over wilderness fears!!

Hiking Swiftwater Lake Loop, Many Glacier Valley-Glacier National Park

Where better to head next than GRIZ territory.
Right of the bat, I will ruin this story by saying I saw NO GRIZ:-(
Did get a handful of excitement by being up and personal with wild/natural encounters of:
bison
moose w/baby
mule deer w/baby
several black bears
wild horses
HUGE rabbits --they look like turkeys(!)
and via binoculars: big horn sheep & babies, and mountain goat & babies

Although there were several spottings of mountain lions on trails I was on, I actually did not have THAT encounter....not really complaining.

In general, I tested out my wildlife encounter coping skills by doing 3 road rides alone, 2 around Glacier and 1 through the North Dakota southern tract of the Badlands. I could not get up the nuts to hike or mtb in the Badlands alone...although the meydahhay was RIGHT friggin there calling my name!! What a loss.
And for 6 days I did a series of all day hiking throughout several sections of Glacier frontcountry....yup that is right, we were not up to the backcountry GRIZ encounter on this trip w/just the 2 of us chix out here alone. Also, we camped in the National Parks section...again pretty wimpy of us, but that alone was pretty wiggy as about only 10% of the campers there are actually in tents....the rest are safely snuggled in their RVs.

It turns out just as we thought, the holiday weekend had the frontcountry well jam packed. But for noise and safety this was ah-okay with us! It also allowed us to each hike some different paces and lengths when we wanted to do some different things as there were plenty of folks out to join up with (you know for that fakey 'safe in a group' feeling!) Lots of great hiking here as we traveled from West Glacier to East Glacier, into the 2 Medicine and Many Glacier valley areas.

2 Medicine is an awesome less traveled section, much quieter & just as scenic w some great hikes to either elevation or on lower level loops. Many Glacier is much more populated as 2 lodges are present, and in general trails string out in more directions as the valley is a little larger. West Glacier (MacDonald) didn't get much attention from us as most of the trails were layered still in feet of snow and at the time a few were also closed due to an aggressive big cat caught stalking some poor souls.



Teddy R. National Park 40mi scenic route, North Dakota (southern tract) Badlands

On the drive out I hit the badlands but in a tourist way, it was over 100 degrees and I just got some info/maps and hoped to hit it up more on the drive home. This was possible as it was only 85 on the way back through so I toured Medora(cute little fake western town w/lots of options for lodging, eating, and shopping), entered the scenic Teddy Roosevelt National Park 40 mile scenic drive through the southern tract which houses free range/wild horses, bison, cats, and of course the chattering praire dogs! This was a rather scary ride, twisty turny roads on which animals could be on, I certainly did not want to kareen around a bend and see a big bison...luckily only 2 bison were near the road and I was able to get by as traffic was going so worked out. The wild horses weren't to keen on the bike either but I figured few people get tramped by a horse so in those areas I just pedaled faster!!!
I was a little sad to see no big desert snakes other than a dead one:-(

So, all the encounters on this trip worked out just okeydokey & nothing wanted to attack me. One motto was pounded into my head the whole time: DO NOT APPROACH THE WILDLIFE.  lol....

So, this has helped a lot. I feel a lot better w/ getting some plans for more bikepack trips even if I have to go alone, although I do have to say I might be avoiding GRIZ territory;-)