Mountains and Rivers: Bear at Low Saddle
June 18, 2008
By Norm Klobetanz
Jeannette, my wife, and I jumped in the old rig and went up to Cold Springs and Low Saddle a couple days ago. My mission was to collect video looking into Hell’s Canyon. Jeannette had her still camera and was looking to expand her portfolio of the area. I have been running around these local mountains since 1982, but I have to admit I’ve never taken the Forest Service road that loops past Cold Springs, Low saddle, and Saw Pit Saddle. I asked a friend who knows our backcountry well about getting video from high up looking into Hells Canyon and he recommended it.
If you read my previous post or as many people know anyway, Hells Canyon is considered the deepest canyon in North America. It has very limited access for people who want to “drive out and see it.” From Riggins, here on the Salmon River, you have a three hour drive around to Hells Canyon Dam, or a an hour and half drive up over Pittsburg Saddle to Pittsburg Landing. (Always wondering about this name and spelling, I recently, while looking through a book about the Civil War, saw that there was a Pittsburg Landing in one of the southern states, which one I don’t remember. Many people came west after the Civil War and that is perhaps a connection.) Just below the dam in Oregon and our Pittsburg Landing is the put-in and take-out for most raft trips through the heart of Hells Canyon and is what we had just done over the three-day Memorial Day weekend. If rafters go beyond this, they typically take out at Heller Bar, Washington. Technically you can drive down to Kirkwood Bar in Hells Canyon but the tow truck bill can be horrendous. Maybe my friend with the tow truck service would like me to talk it up, but if you want to go, you can look it up yourself on maps.
In any case the other options from the Idaho side is to drive to a few places in the mountains and see part of the canyon and most likely not see all the way to the river at the bottom. Heaven’s Gate and the look out tower just north of the peaks of the Seven Devils give a great view of our area. It is the highest and most comprehensive view around to “just drive to.” Just south of Riggins the road up there is a long narrow 17 miles of twist and switch back. It is one of the last roads in the spring to clear from snowdrifts. The look out sits right on the divide of Hells Canyon and the Salmon River canyon. I have video from there already and I was looking for different views that hopefully showed some of the river at the bottom. Getting to these places requires driving gravel and dirt Forest Service Roads and I recommend high clearance vehicles with four wheel drive.
The other day we went up Race Creek just north of Riggins and took the Bean Creek road to Iron Phone Junction and then several miles later the turn off to Cold Springs and eventually up over the top and the divide into Hell’s Canyon and the Snake River drainage. A good map is recommended, as some signs are unclear or nonexistent. At the top we were in sub-alpine meadows and pine and fir forests; everything was green and lush, but the explosion of wild flowers at this altitude was a week or two away. However, where snow banks had recently melted, groups of yellow glacier lilies grew. They are also known as dogtoothed violets. The views looking south at the snow cloaked Seven Devils were great, while across in Oregon the long fairly level Hells Canyon rim and walls of basalt formed the western horizon. Green grass and narrow strips of pines flowed down canyon sides towards the unseen Snake River far below. After stopping to shoot and photograph several times we drove on and the road dropped lower into tall pines dominated by Douglas-fir and ponderosa. At one switch back we got a nice view to shoot from but still no view of the river in the bottom. Eventually we came to the turn to Low Saddle, a one mile dead-end road that dropped through the forest towards a swale on the big ridge we were on. We took it but quickly came to a large ponderosa snag that had fallen blocking the road. We grabbed our photo equipment, climbed over the ponderosa, and started hiking down the road.
We were in what is referred to as parkland with open stands of Douglas-fir and ponderosa of differing ages with shrubs like ocean spray, and long green lush grasses and herbs. On the berm beside the road grew yellow heart-leafed arnica and little white prairie stars (woodland-star). A fire went through two summers before but most of the trees survived. Black stumps and scarred trees were still common. As my wife walked in front of me I tried to be cute and said we needed to keep an eye out for bears, mountain lions, and wolves. It wasn’t much more than 60 seconds later I stopped us with a “whoa.” We quickly scrambled with our equipment to try and photograph a black bear quartering slightly away through the open park below the road working towards thicker shrubs and trees. The bear apparently hadn’t seen us or heard us. I was unable to get any good shots. Setting up and leveling my tripod always takes time and it has to be re-leveled every time it is moved. A tripod is necessary when zoomed in on wildlife. The bear was hard to keep track of as it foraged into thicker cover and we lost sight of it. I moved up and down the road trying to make it out again. Finally I decided to go for it and went back up the road trying to get in front of the bear.
The North American Black Bear can be found throughout much of North America. Adults can range from about 100 pounds to 800 pounds. It seems richness of habitat is the primary reason for this wide range in size. In Idaho our bears live in tough mountainous terrain and a 300 pounder is big. Our bears are hunted often with dogs as are our mountain lions. My personal theory is that we have fewer cougar and bear attacks on people compared to some places because they are hunted here.
Canada has more black bear attacks than the U.S. This and looking at other trends back east it seems to me that as people move into bear country or as bears move back to old haunts among newer homes, incidents of attacks go up. It only makes sense. A quick Internet search showed a recent incident where a woman in western North Carolina got slapped by a mother black bear in the woman’s drive way. The woman was trying to protect her dogs who where threatening the bear’s cubs. None involved were seriously hurt. Black bears are wild animals and they are strong, fast, and can climb trees. And, yes, sometimes they kill people. Historically, according to Wikipedia, a total of 54 deaths in North America can be attributed to black bear attacks.
In the Clearwater area north of us, the Idaho Fish and Game is issuing multiple bear hunting permits trying to cut their numbers back. The elk heard there is struggling and black bears are known to eat elk calves. My guide buddies on the Selway River relate the story how while in camp their group witnessed on a far hillside a black bear cut an elk fawn out and push it down a steep hillside not unlike a cutting horse and steer. The bear eventually cornered the fawn and killed it; the forlorn mother had followed behind and then wondered off when she realized the bear was beginning to eat her dead calf. On Selway River trips when clients asked what large animals they could expect to see, I honestly told them, “Bears.”
I hustled up the road with video camera on the tripod. The road curled up and around to where I hoped I could get some good video of the bear my wife and I had just spotted. The burned black stumps and trees kept fooling me and I couldn’t see the bear. I turned to go back down the road and heard a hiss. My wife was down at the edge of the road plastered behind a large pine 100 feet away. She was waving me to come while her eyes were fixed into the woods. As I worked towards her I saw the bear; it was looking at her and slowly moving towards her. I set up the tripod and started videoing. The bear saw me and kept turning his head to Jeannette then back to me. It again moved towards her and Jeannette gave another nervous hiss. I started talking to the bear telling him that hey, we were people and he shouldn’t get too close. The bear turned and cautiously came towards me looking with its bad eyesight and sniffing with its good sense of smell. No air movement. It came to within perhaps 40 feet of me. By now I was waving my hat and talking loudly telling it to stay away. The bear did not seem to know what we were. I picked up the tripod and quick stepped down to Jeannette. The bear followed slowly in the woods and stopped perhaps 50 feet away. It suddenly gave what seemed like an impatient slap on the ground with its right front paw and sat down like a dog would with a sit command and stared at us. In unison we quick stepped down the road and when just out of sight did what you are not supposed to do—run. Well, we half ran and half quick stepped down the road trying not to trip as we constantly were looking back. Apparently it wasn’t following us.
I guided sport fisherman in Alaska on the Good News River out on the edge of the Bering Sea for three seasons and I had some close encounters with coastal brown bears. These bears can be huge and are closer than first cousins to Grizzly Bears. I admit that a few times I was scared, real scared, but I handled it okay. Black bears in Idaho don’t intimidate me that much. For one they genuinely seem to be afraid of people and run like heck when they realize what you are—again referring back to my theory about hunting them, etc. On the Good News River the natives (Yupik Eskimos) hunted brown bears. They traveled via outboard jet sleds while hunting and because of this, I theorized, usually the sound of motors sent the bears running for cover. Yelling and waving a hat didn’t.
I have to admit being afraid during black bear encounters in Idaho a time or two. One was last summer; a mother and cubs became habituated to river camps on the upper Middle Fork of the Salmon and started raiding them regularly. In my tent I felt safe one night as people were yelling and banging things to get them out of camp. We had our food safely hung up and coolers strapped shut. Suddenly I herd a snuffle just outside my tent and then an overwhelmingly rotten nasty smell suffused the entire inside of my tent. I mean rank! But the bear moved on. Another time years ago I was horn hunting with the same good friend who recommended the Cold Spring road. After getting back to camp one night he told me how he had treed a bear by barking like a dog. The next day bushwhacking along looking for elk horns, I spied a brown-phased black bear coming along through the trees in my direction. He kept coming closer and closer; getting scared I tried barking like a dog, but fear squeezed my throat and the barks came out more like mouse squeaks. The bear kept coming as I croaked and squeaked to no avail. He got so close I could see little gnats flying around his wet myopic eyes before he finally turned away and ambled off.
My wife and I followed the road down to Low Saddle, which was more open and grassy with fewer trees. There surprisingly was a concrete Forest Service outhouse. I saw no signs of camping and the grass was very tall and undisturbed around the outhouse. We walked out to a rocky out crop and the drop-off into Hells Canyon. The river was barely visible for a short stretch below where it bent around a cliff face known as Suicide Point. Around the rock out cropping where we stood grew a hand full of curlleaf mountain-mahogany trees. They were about ten feet high, gnarled and twisted—typical mountain-mahogony. It has a very dense and dark hard wood, though not related to tropical mahoganies. Dead it makes good coals for camp cooking, but the wood is nasty to handle and hard to break or saw--use gloves!
Somewhere in the back of my mind I sort of know there is not supposed to be mountain-mahogony in Hells Canyon, but there it was, albeit high up. On our recent raft rip through Hells Canyon I wanted to look for it, but didn’t remember to pay close attention. I don’t remember seeing any. On the computer I just went through my wife’s pictures from the raft trip. In not one picture did I make out any mahogany in Hells Canyon. I went to a folder with Salmon River pictures and I quickly and easily found shots with mahogany on the hillsides. Mountain mahogany is quite common on rocky hillsides and rocky points on the Salmon River system from the Middle Fork through to the Lower Salmon. My dim memory claims that something about the acidity of the soil in Hells Canyon is not conducive to mahogany. I found a good tree identification book in the Riggns library, Wild Trees of Idaho, by Fredric D. Johnson, University of Idaho Press. He claims that its range extends “northward along the Snake River to about the Grand Ronde River junction.” This would include Hells Canyon, but maybe he meant higher up and not at river level. He also says the, “…wood is used for novelties, fuel, and recently for flutes. Folklore has it that rustlers and bandits used mountain-mahogony wood for campfires, since it burns with so little smoke. Many stands of mountain-mahogony were cut during the early mining days, since the wood made excellent charcoal.”
After getting our shots my wife wanted to wait longer before walking back up to the car; you know, to give the bear more time to clear out. She asked what I would have done if the bear truly came at us. I said I had the bark like a dog trick and a heavy tripod to swing in defense. Suddenly she gasped—there was the bear again walking through the grass 60 feet away. It turned towards us—I yelled and waved my hat. It sniffed and squinted at us and kept coming. I started barking like a dog, loud and quite dog like, I thought. Later my wife said I should try to sound more like a hound dog. In any case the bear came closer rose up on hind legs and stared at us and then came down to all fours with another testy slap on the ground with its right paw. We took off—it was a quick step, not really a run, honest. The bear was black, had a white patch that made a “V” at the top of his chest. I think he was on the smaller side, not a cub, but maybe a youngster who had never seen people before. I didn’t notice any gnats swirling around its eyes and I could see them clearly. The last we saw him he was just standing in the road where we had just been.
Getting back to the loop road we decided to back track not seeing any vehicle tracks leading forward. More trees could be down. Upon driving back up to the sub-alpine meadows we ran into one of my wife’s high school girl friends, her husband, father, and three Forest Service employees. Jeannette’s friend’s family owns a ranch on the Salmon side and they were figuring out what fences needed mended on their cow grazing leases. Her friend said we could get views of the Snake River at the bottom of the canyon from Saw Pit Saddle, but that we would not have been able to go all the way through on the loop because of a rock slide that hadn’t been cleared yet. Jeannette and I made a pact to return in a couple weeks when the sub-alpine zone is a wash in wild flowers and we will see about Saw Pit Saddle.
Addendum: June 23, 2009--Jeannette and I drove to Saw Pit Saddle this morning for more shots into Hells Canyon. I think I got some good scenery video with colorful wildflowers in the foreground. We saw whitetails, mule deer including a buck in velvet, and two cow elk. Recently I showed a friend the bear video I shot at Low Saddle. Looking down the “tunnel” of the view finder is hard sometimes to see the details clearly. My friend and I agree that the bear was showing aggressive behavior and was telling us that this was his area and we should get out. It opened and closed its mouth a lot and one time pinned its ears back. At one time it walked in a funny way with toes in, sort of strutting or swaggering, and the foot slap with brief run to the side might have been close to a false charge. He was trying to intimidate us. We probably were foolish to stand our ground. I have bear spray from when I worked in Alaska, never thought I’d need it here!
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