Sharing Huckleberries with the Bears

After a beautiful blue-sky day yesterday, we have chances of rain all day today. But that doesn't keep us at home, because our campground hosts have suggested a good hike and we're determined to try it. Even though it was sprinkling, we drove the 7 miles on a rocky, pot-holed dirt road that was barely wide enough for one car. I'm not sure what we would have done if we would have met another car coming in the opposite direction. But this trail isn't well known, and we were the only vehicle at the trail head parking lot. That means we'll have the trail to ourselves--or at least we won't see any other humans on this hike.

Even though the road was in terrible condition, we were glad to see new bridges in place over some of the water crossings once we started hiking. We wouldn't have to get our feet wet like our campground host thought.

We were sure hoping to find some huckleberries today. Trout Creek just hosted the Huckleberry Festival last weekend, and rumor has it that this is a good year for these wild berries. Two years ago we learned that huckleberries are only found at very specific altitudes and under very specific growing conditions. Denisa became a very slow hiker, as she kept stopping to inspect bushes and to pick an occasional huckleberry.

Alas, she wasn't finding many huckleberries. She did find some perfectly ripe thimbleberries. These beautiful berries must be a cousin to the raspberry, but they are really too seedy for even a berry-lover like Denisa to enjoy.

The clouds are still hanging around as we would like to see the mountain-tops that surround us.

We had heard that the first half of the hike was a gentle slope that heads to a waterfall and some old mining equipment. We found both at the same time.

Then Part 2 of the hike begins, as we head steeply up the mountain for views of the valley now far below us.

Denisa is smiling because now we are at a higher elevation and we are beginning to see huckleberries on the bushes. We're leaving markers along the trail, as we're planning to return to pick those berries on our way back down this trail.

That's when it happened! We rounded another blind corner and surprised a black bear eating those delicious huckleberries right beside the trail! We're not sure who was more startled--the bear or us. Mark hurried back down the trail while the bear hurried up the slope of the mountain. Now with a little space between us, Mark took a picture of the bear.

Denisa has been giving Mark a hard time about his poor bear photography skills when he didn't get a picture of the grizzly he saw on the trail a couple weeks ago. If you haven't found the bear in the picture above, you are not alone. If we zoom in A LOT you can barely see the blurry top of his black bear head in the very middle of the picture below.

Now we had to make a decision. Do we turn around and head back to the car, or do we push on for another two miles through bear country to our destination at Rock Lake? We've heard how pretty this lake is, but is it worth hiking in bear country on a deserted trail with lots of overgrown bushes and blind curves? We guess it is worth it, because we pressed on until we arrived at Rock Lake.

Nestled between several peaks of the Cabinet Mountains, we knew the views would have even been prettier if those darn clouds would lift.

But instead of lifting, it started sprinkling on us again. Now that we're a little jittery from being so close to a bear, we are checking out our surroundings to be sure there isn't another one taking a break here at the lake. That's when we realized that the bushes on the shore of Rock Lake were full of huckleberries!

Where we had seen a few tiny berries here and there on the trail, these bushes near the water were completely covered!

No longer worried about bears or concerned about the possibilities of rain showers, Denisa sets herself down in the middle of all those huckleberries and starts picking.

She always takes snacks for the trail, so we quickly ate that food so we could use the ziplock bags for huckleberries.

After more than an hour of picking, we took a picture of our huckleberry harvest. Now if we can just get all of these delicious berries back down this 5-mile trail without making them into huckleberry juice. Or worse yet, without getting mugged by a hungry bear.

We had hoped that the clouds would lift while we were picking berries. But one more picture at Rock Lake before we left still had those tall mountain peaks shrouded with clouds.

Knowing there was at least one bear on the long trail in front of us, we used our best bear-aware skills. We talked loudly, and sang all the verses of all the songs we could think of as we tried to make as much noise as possible. We certainly didn't want to surprise another bear on the way down the trail. The good news is that we didn't see another bear, and we got those huckleberries down that mountain. Mark's all-trails app says that we hiked 10.2 miles with an elevation gain of 1,854 feet today. We even got a hint of blue in the sky before we got back to the car.

We spent the rest of the day getting those huckleberries washed and in the freezer. Tonight we'll be dreaming of huckleberry cheesecake, huckleberry syrup, huckleberry crisp, huckleberry pancakes, and hopefully NOT about huckleberry-eating bears. Our last day at Trout Creek, Montana was certainly interesting!