Big Skies and Big Bears
August 21, 2005
D went on a fun plane ride today…he hooked up a tiny camera to the tail of a Cessna and went flying with Dave Hoerner to take pictures of another Cessna in Glacier National Park to get a good shot for Dave’s book that he is writing (he’s already written another one, this’ll be his second one) about mountain flying. So, they flew close to Glaciers and around spectacular peaks…sounds like it was a lot of fun for D!!
Flight pictures from D's plane ride:
I stayed home and slept in with the dogs. Got up and cleaned the camper and waited for my hubby to come home…but around 10:00 Tim came over and told me that a biologist from the “east side” was bringing a grizzly over to release and Tim was going to go help him and would I like to come? Well, certainly!!!
It took another 45 minutes to get everything coordinated and D showed up just moments before we were to head out, so he quickly got his camera gear together and drove up with us. We met the biologist and took him up a Forest Service road and helped him unload his trap. He has a different setup…where our culvert traps all sit on trailers that we hitch to…his culvert trap fits in the back of his pickup truck and can be lowered and lifted in there. So…the boys unloaded the trap with the 285 pound male griz in it and D set up his little video camera on the trail we thought the bear would run down. Then we all got into the trucks and the biologist got the door lifted and the bear didn’t come out…and didn’t come out…and didn’t come out…for the looongest time!!!! The biologist dropped the door and went over to the trap and the bear was facing the opposite direction ASLEEP! Well, in his defense, he had only been drugged that morning…maybe 5 hours earlier…so he was still pretty drugged and sleepy. We got him facing the right direction and went back to the trucks and tried again and he came out this time and ran right by D’s little video camera! The shot D’s been waiting to get!!!!!
When we got out of the trucks to load up the trap we saw that the bear had actually knocked the camera over! We got the trap loaded back up and D rewound the tape and we watched the video and the bear ran over the camera! Knocked it over with his front right paw as he ran over it! It’s a great shot!!! D is a very, very happy man!
We got back from that little excursion and I ran to the store while D tried to catch Usko in the act of breaking out of the yard we’re camped in…Usko has managed to escape from this yard multiple times in the last two days! It’s aggravating!!! We’ve tried to set him up a number of times so we can shock him when he does it to teach him “NO!” but he won’t fall for it when he knows we’re watching him….smart dog…so I got back, made us lunch and we sat and visited with Tim on his deck and yacked and looked at funny videos that D has on his computer and basically wasted an hour and a half.
Tim’s joining his wife, Carol, and her two kids at the fair tonight, but D and I are probably going to skip it and hang together in the quiet…maybe go see a movie…who knows.
Prep for trapping continues tomorrow and official trapping will begin a week from Monday!!
D went on a fun plane ride today…he hooked up a tiny camera to the tail of a Cessna and went flying with Dave Hoerner to take pictures of another Cessna in Glacier National Park to get a good shot for Dave’s book that he is writing (he’s already written another one, this’ll be his second one) about mountain flying. So, they flew close to Glaciers and around spectacular peaks…sounds like it was a lot of fun for D!!
Flight pictures from D's plane ride:
I stayed home and slept in with the dogs. Got up and cleaned the camper and waited for my hubby to come home…but around 10:00 Tim came over and told me that a biologist from the “east side” was bringing a grizzly over to release and Tim was going to go help him and would I like to come? Well, certainly!!!
It took another 45 minutes to get everything coordinated and D showed up just moments before we were to head out, so he quickly got his camera gear together and drove up with us. We met the biologist and took him up a Forest Service road and helped him unload his trap. He has a different setup…where our culvert traps all sit on trailers that we hitch to…his culvert trap fits in the back of his pickup truck and can be lowered and lifted in there. So…the boys unloaded the trap with the 285 pound male griz in it and D set up his little video camera on the trail we thought the bear would run down. Then we all got into the trucks and the biologist got the door lifted and the bear didn’t come out…and didn’t come out…and didn’t come out…for the looongest time!!!! The biologist dropped the door and went over to the trap and the bear was facing the opposite direction ASLEEP! Well, in his defense, he had only been drugged that morning…maybe 5 hours earlier…so he was still pretty drugged and sleepy. We got him facing the right direction and went back to the trucks and tried again and he came out this time and ran right by D’s little video camera! The shot D’s been waiting to get!!!!!
When we got out of the trucks to load up the trap we saw that the bear had actually knocked the camera over! We got the trap loaded back up and D rewound the tape and we watched the video and the bear ran over the camera! Knocked it over with his front right paw as he ran over it! It’s a great shot!!! D is a very, very happy man!
We got back from that little excursion and I ran to the store while D tried to catch Usko in the act of breaking out of the yard we’re camped in…Usko has managed to escape from this yard multiple times in the last two days! It’s aggravating!!! We’ve tried to set him up a number of times so we can shock him when he does it to teach him “NO!” but he won’t fall for it when he knows we’re watching him….smart dog…so I got back, made us lunch and we sat and visited with Tim on his deck and yacked and looked at funny videos that D has on his computer and basically wasted an hour and a half.
Tim’s joining his wife, Carol, and her two kids at the fair tonight, but D and I are probably going to skip it and hang together in the quiet…maybe go see a movie…who knows.
Prep for trapping continues tomorrow and official trapping will begin a week from Monday!!