Welcome to episode thirty three of gat Out, a live a podcast where me,
your host Ashley every other week tells you a new animal tach story.
There we got it, and yeah she didn't get the first time, and
you're the host. Nick is not going to be part of this episode.
Really, I think I'm just listening the whole time, Like there's not even
like things for me to react. I'm sorry, but what do you do
otherwise? Uh? Yeah? No? Oh my god. So we have
a couple of new patrons a shout out cute the music, So thank you
very much to our new expert survivalists Babs and Kim Williamson. We really appreciate
you guys. It was really awesome for me. I love our patrons so
much. Specifically, Kim, who we just mentioned, said that at first
not the biggest a Nick, but she was wrong and I think that's hilarious.
And also another patron, Don said that Nick should never be muzzled,
so if Nick gets worse after like in the coming episodes, you'll know who
to blame. I can't get any worse like this is who I am.
I disagree, I've seen it, I've seen you wor Yeah, now you're
right. Yeah, yep, okay, we have so. Well. First
of all, thank you to our patrons at patreon dot com slash get our
live podcast. You get a bunch of different benefits for joining, so you
get a shout out at the fifteen dollars level. You also get bonus episodes,
discount some merch and we send you every few months a gift. And
the one that we have coming is so good. I love it, I
love it. I want one. Yeah, we might have an extra one
I bought. I think just enough with the new patrons. Yeah, so
I'll be honest whenever we order stuff, I don't think about the fact we
might grow just doesn't exist in my brain. So well, thankfully you are
not the order person for this podcast. I'm not much of an anything person
for this podcast. You sent out emails and that was I did. Thank
you. Yeah I really stressed that about writing an email too. Yeah,
I bet you did. So the episode we are covering today and in the
coming weeks. So you know how true crime is a thing, like true
crime podcasts and documentaries and shit. Yeah you know how there's like famous cases,
Yeah sure, like you know, famous serial killers, famous people have
gone missing, or killed whatever, So I feel like the animal attack world
doesn't really have that except for this case. Okay, this is one of
the big ones. No, okay, because no offense. You're you,
and honestly, I've mentioned it a few times and you were like, I
don't know what this is. So I don't think you're going to know what
this is. Yeah, probably that seems about right. But it has consumed
so much of my life in the past few weeks, so it's going to
now consume all of yours. So what we're talking about today is Night of
the Grizzlies, which was a book written by Jack Olson, and it covers
a series of well it covers some grizzly bear attacks in Glacier National Park back
in the day. So it's super long. So for context, an hour
long episode for us, I might have a total of like six pages of
notes, like the Savo Lines episode, which is insane, by the way,
that's a lot of notes. The amount of notes I have for this
story is twenty one pages. That's a that's had ridiculous. It's a beast.
So I am pulling most of what I'm going to be talking about today
from Jack Olson's Night the Grizzlies Book, which was published in June of nineteen
sixty nine. And then also there's a wonderful PBS documentary like by Montana PBS
that is called Glacier Parks Night of the Grizzlies and it was published in twenty
eleven in May, so be pulling from both of those. And yeah,
there's a lot that was like Prime Discovery Channel or like Animal Planet watching time
for me, So like maybe I saw it on one of those if they
played it twenty eleven. Yeah, you're in the eighth grade. Yeah,
that's when I'm watching Discovery Channel and I don't play it. Yeah when we
watch, well, it was Montana PBS, So I doubt that you saw
a GBS show from Montana. I saw all the good shit. The beginning's
a bit cheesy, and I will say the book so Jack Olsen he has
since passed, but he was a crime writer, like a true crime novelist.
So his story about this is like a little like the language is a
little bit flowery in the first two chapters or him just describing the park,
So there's that. Are going to read all that or we're going to skip
right there. Oh, I'm not going to go on for two chapters worth
of book, but I am going to give some quick facts before, so
there's a lot of build up to what we're going to start talking about,
and I swear it'll all make sense. I am only going to introduce you
to characters that are important. There are a lot of characters. There's like
four of them that have almost exactly the same names. Ray Ron, Roy,
Robert. There's a lot of ours. Ray Ron, what was it,
Roy Ray, I can't even do it, ray Ron, roy Don,
Robert. There's and then there's two brothers who are so Ray and Ron
are brothers, and then there's a Roy, and then there's a Don and
Robert. So should we just we have to start because if we don't start
this episode, so we're gonna try to split this and how I think I
want to do it is this episode will release and then the second part will
immediately be available to our patrons, and then in two weeks part two will
be the normal episode like on our normal feed. That sound good? Cool?
It might even have to be three episodes. We'll see what we get
to. Yeah, so let's just get into it. Our story takes place
in Glacier National Park, which is in the northwest corner of Montana. And
we're gonna talk about Glacier for a bit before we get started. For those
who have not been there, it was established in May of nineteen ten,
and the park is sixteen hundred square miles and has over seven hundred miles of
trails, and as of eighteen fifty it was home to over eighty glaciers,
but as of twenty fifteen, there are only twenty six. This is due
to both natural processes but also human caused climate change. Of course, it
is an extremely busy park and between May and September there are three million visitors.
The most popular trails are the Grenelle Glacier Trail, the Highline Trail,
and Avalanche Lake, which averaged over one thousand hikers a day during the busy
season. I went to Glacier last year and I can attest to this.
We got up early, drove around for hours on top of Glacier National Park
at the end of going to the Sun Road, and it was like,
no matter how many times we circled, we could not find parking to hike
any of those trails because that's where the mountain goats are and the marmots and
stuff like all the things people want to see. So it's basically impossible.
And we talked about this before in the Otter Family Grizzly Attack, because it's
sometimes it seems like it's forcing people to get up and hike pre dawn and
dusk, which are dangerous times to be hiking around grizzlies. So yeah,
all the things that we said about Glacier in that episode apply in this one.
The higher elevation trails can be covered in snow until late June, and
snow may begin to accumulate again in mid October. Although there are less people
in spring and fall, wildlife are more active, which can be both a
good and a bad thing. We're gonna take a hot second to talk about
all the cool animals like Glacier has. So Glacier's home to seventy one species
of mammals, which includes, of course, the grizzly, bighorn sheep,
links, mountain goats, pikas, and wolverines and Glacier slash. Montana in
general is home to the densest population of wolverines in the lower forty eight,
with fifty individuals documented at one time, which is a lot because wolverine is
a lot of space really, so yeah mm hmm. It's home to six
species of amphibians, four frogs, one toad, one salamander. There are
two hundred and sixty species of birds, including golden eagles, Clark's nutcracker,
and ptarmigans. There are only three species of reptile that have been found in
the park, which includes the garter snake, the western painted turtle, and
a few sightings of the rubber boa. There's like not a lot of lizards
or insects or anything like because it's so gosh dang cold. Yeah, it's
pretty hard, yeah, exactly, but garters can live anywhere. I'm convinced.
We covered, like I said, a bare attack story in Glacier before
with the Otter family grizzly attack. But let's go over some stats again on
grizzly attacks. On average, there are only one or two non lethal quote
attacks in Glacier per year. And we've talked about this word attack before too,
Like this could just mean a negative encounter like someone brushing up at the
grizzly or yeah, grizzly like mauling somebody. What it's so dumb. Yeah,
you and I have talked about it, like, to us, attack
means like intentional in the animal's part and the human didn't necessarily cause it.
Right, Yeah, But like even if, like you you're like sitting a
campire or something and a bear comes up and like like scratch your leg,
like just kind of seeing what's around, is that an attack? It depends
on who you ask, right, exactly. Yeah, So that word's a
little iafy. But there have been ten bear related deaths in the park since
nineteen sixty seven, and only three of those were hikers, two of which
were solo hikers. And how many of them are going to be in this
episode you don't know. Now, we'll get to the story once again.
This is a very famous story and it actually changed how national parks and of
course specifically Glacier managed bears. That being said, we are going to try
to remain as judgment free as we can, and I encourage everyone to do
the same. Because this story takes place in nineteen six seven. This bears
were not being managed in Glacier at least period, so they didn't have the
kind of knowledge that we have now. So people were stupider back in the
day, is what you're saying. Remember how you said judgment free. Oh
yeah, yeah, so people are less intelligent. People did not know how
to exist around bears properly. No, I actually I'm giving you shit,
but that makes tense sense. Like they don't have a thousand TV channels to
go watch when they're fourteen years old, like now, it's yeah, they're
not going to be as well first, and really random things like interacting with
bears, Like really, when you're gonna need that on normal day? Not
that often, but really good to fucking notes in case. Yeah, and
of course we're talking about like classically white people like Native Americans in the area
obviously knew what the hell to do around bears. Yeah, that's very good
distinction. Yeah, and we'll get into that in this story actually, which
is good. Yay. So also, like a lot of the story sucks.
This might be the first time that I actually cry telling a story.
Oh no, I know, yeah I almost cried in the last one talking
about Simon who was killed by the rattlesnake. But yeah, this one's pretty
rough. But this did change things for the better, and the parks did
have a very strong reaction after this, so which like they should, and
it was their fault for something to be so terrible. It's good, Like
I'm genuinely concerned. Yeah, all right. Like I said, there's a
lot of build up and a lot of players in this story, so please
bear with me, okay, ok I gotta get the jokes in where I
can that you don't. But thank you. You're welcome, all right.
So the summer of nineteen sixty seven was an incredibly hot and dry summer,
and it was the busiest Glacier National Park had ever seen. Along with a
record number of tourists, the park was also battling forest fires. Most of
the park's staff were preoccupied with battling the fires at this time, so only
a handful of rangers were left to keep track of Taurus, let alone try
to keep track of the bears. The specific problem areas where Trout Lake and
Granite Park, which were eight miles apart and separated by the Livingston Mountain Range,
and right between them was an ice capped nine thousand foot mountain called Heaven's
Peak. So they're far apart. This is point two very different areas.
Yep. Specifically, in this summer, there was one old, starving female
grizzly that had been raiding a group of family held cabins called Kelly's Cabin,
which were near Trout Lake, and the residence there had made multiple reports of
the rangers about her throughout the summer, and the bear was known to have
no fear of humans. The Granite Park Chalet was within Granite Park and it
is now a historical landmark where hikers can spend the night. It's located off
the Highland Trail along the garden wall and below. The chalet was a camping
area. So we've got Trout Lake with Kelly's Camps near there, that bear
that's bothering them, and then we have in Granite Park the Granite Park Chalet,
which is like a lodge for hikers. Okay, So this summer,
rangers were receiving reports that there was heightened bear activity at the Granite Park Chalet
as well, and moreover, that bears were eating being left behind garbage,
despite the park's incinerator, which was intended to lessen the amount of garbage being
left out. However, the incinerator did not account for the amount of people
that would be visiting this summer, so it didn't do a whole lot.
Early in August of the summer of sixty seven, Francis Elmore, the park's
chief naturalist, was guiding AJ Taylor, who was the brother in law of
President Lyndon Johnson, to the Granite Park chalet during a visit to the park.
They reached the chalet just in time for the biggest attraction, the grizzlies.
There were around sixty other people waiting to see the bears, and AJ
Taylor grew increasingly nervous about so many bears gathering so close to the chalet.
He even asked one of the rangers if they had guns, and they firmly
told him that guns were absolutely not allowed in the park. He later remarked
he was quote indignant because he thought quote the park people were so dedicated to
preserving the wildlife that they weren't protecting the people end quote. Yeah, we've
brought that up before, m hm, and that at any point, quote
a bear could have gone berserk and massacred everyone there and showing it is so
it was a joke, as don't worry, there's a lot of build up,
we'll get to it. That's imagine. I was like, that's it.
Everyone there died right away. That's it. Everyone died that's it,
but the rest of my notes are just a rant. So as they were
watching a silver tipped male grizzly eat the garbage, they heard movement coming up
the trail and assumed it was another bear, until they realized that what they
were hearing were bear bells and it was actually two young men hiking towards the
chalet. One of the rangers yelled at the boys to walk through the brush
directly towards the chalet to avoid the big mail, and when the boys made
it to the chalet, they remarked that they were going to camp beneath it
that night, like beneath the chalet at the campground, but had encountered another
grizzly farther down the trail that spooked them, so they were able to spend
the night at the chalet instead, despite it being full of Yeah, well,
I feel like when I say chalet, like, in my mind it
was so nice. And then I watched the PBS documentary and I was like,
oh, it's just like a log cabin and people slept on the floor.
Aw so okay, yeah, I'm also and you had like this big,
elegant fight. No, definitely not Trout Lake was also extremely busy,
as busy as Granite Park, except there was no chalet for the hikers to
hide in. Because the summer was so busy, trash was scattered all over
the shore, The campsites were full, and all the trail registers were so
jammed full of complaints about the situation that no one else could actually write in
the trail register and many people were left to camp out in the open.
On August eighth, nineteen sixty seven, Jerry Chase and his wife Sharon let
a girl Scout troop of six from Kallispell, Montana, into the area for
a three day camping trip. The Chases used their small gray pony Sage to
haul a majority of the gear. When they got to the trail registered,
they noticed that a majority of them mentioned bears, but they were seasoned hikers
and Jerry was a big game hunter, not like African big game, like
elk and other North American things. That's great. Did he have a gun
on him like at this moment? No, because they weren't allowed in the
park, so initially they weren't nervous. However, their nerves quickly caught up
to them as they arrived at the campsite and saw tin can's bit and in
half, shredded packs, canned vegetables punctured and left behind, and tattered clothing
left behind. It's a scary sight. Yeah. Keep in mind these were
also pre pack in and pack out days, so people weren't conscious of the
dangers of leaving behind tra People just like leaving their shit there. So this
could just be like a trash camp that isn't like someone's got to like the
piece, yes, correct, yep? Okay, yeah, so the chases
were veterans at Glacier National Park specifically, but they had never seen such obvious
signs of bear activity, especially in camping areas. So like, obviously the
things being bitten in half were from bears. Enough people, good indicator.
Yep. They noted to one another to keep an eye out for the bears,
but they didn't share their concerns with the girls. Obviously. This group
tied up their provisions and hoisted it high into a tree, which is the
correct thing to do out of breach to the bears. Yep, so we
have a lot of that, which is nice. Like people knew at least
that much. That night they popped corn over the fire, but burned,
some so badly beyond the point of being edible, so they left the charred
bits on the Ah, that sucks. We've all done that, some chiffy
poppa with fire. Oh yeah, I do it every gosh dang time,
mic wave. I don't know if I've ever successfully done it. Yeah,
there you go. So the girls went to bed and sleeping bags under the
sky, and the Chases slept little ways away with the horse sage tied horse
and glacier by the way. Yeah, yeah, me too. Also Sage
adorable name, great name. Also, I don't know why it shocked me
so much. But like everyone in this story, when I say they're camping,
they're literally just sleeping bag on the ground. No. Ten, No
one in the story is yeh title bitches nowadays, back in the good old
days, they they did it rough, all right, Well there's reason they
don't know. Sorry, No, I think it was better back then,
Ashley, come on, everything was better that night. Jerry remarked that there
had never actually you know what, No, I'm not gonna get into it,
but what was going on? You said it was good. But the
sixties apparently, like there were more young people than ever, like the young
people outnumbered any other age group in the population. It's because a lot of
the last generation got killed in World War Two. But yeah, yeah,
and there was a lot of racial injustice and like talks about that. Like
no, yeah, Vietnam obviously was happening, so it wasn't the good old
days. No, it's terrible sarcasm, okay, good just checking that night,
Jerry remarked that there had never been a death in Glacier from a grizzly
and the last bad move yep, and the last serious injury had been four
to five years before. So he was an algebra teacher and normally like the
statistics would comfort him, but for some reason they did not on this night.
In the morning, one of the girls in the troupe, Karen,
asked if someone had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to
the bathroom, because if so, they had stepped on her foot. After
asking one by one, Sharon the parent like the mother. No, she
wasn't a mom, she was just the adult female in the group. Sharon
came to find that no one had gotten up in the night, and immediately
the girls concluded that a bear had stepped on Karen's foot. Also the charred
popcorn. The popcorn is one thing, but like lying about stepping on someone's
foot and blaming it on a bear is a total like little girl thing to
do. Oh for sure, I would absolutely do that. Yeah, yep,
but the popcorn being gone like it's a bear, Like, I'll accept
it. I was gonna go on a rant. But we're good, Okay,
I'm so glad. So some of the girls went fishing that day,
but others were too afraid to adventure out. By three pm, all the
girls were at the camp and decided that they were done camping near Trout Lake
and once they finished their early steak dinner, they would hike back out of
glacier because they just decided. They're like, I'm good. They were like,
we it's not worth it because option Karen got stepped fucking wild back then
dude, so got quit. Once stakes were done, the girls began assembling
their packs. One of the girls named Pat was tasked with getting the provisions
hanging from the tree down, but it was stuck, so she climbed her
way up the tree and unjammed the knot, then said, okay, bear,
I'm ready for you now. Ooh ooh, someone on the ground said
very funny, and as the knot was undone, Pat slid down the tree
and as soon as she hit the ground, she pointed a shaking hand towards
stage the pony and yelled down. Oh my god. Jerry started a scold
Pat for joking about the bear, when out of the corner of his eye
he saw something brown. You guys are yelling at without even looking. Yeah,
go men, Oh he's the least terrible man this story, let me
tell you, Oh god, because for ten minutes probably Yeah, he turned
to see a grizzly with a silver tip mane creeping towards the sleeping horse.
Sage very quickly woke up and took off to the very end of her line
towards the lake, and the grizzly ran after her. As soon as it
got close, Sage side stepped it and then ran to the other end of
the line, which was twenty eight feet. So she like juped this bear
out, which is very good. Yeah, sick ye, So the grizzly
actually stopped at her saddle blanket instead of pursuing her, and the group took
off up the hill. After about thirty to forty feet the group stopped and
Charon initially told the girls to climb a tree, but not all of them
could climb, and the trees in the area were not great for climbing,
so they just kept going off the trail. Jerry ran back to stage and
the grizzly was going through the food, scrapped and tearing apart everyone's packs,
and one of the packs was a glass jar of jelly, and the bear
just swallowed it. Home baller. The girls were above the bearer on the
trail now and growing a patient. One girl threw a rock at the base.
The little girl suck or are the best because the grizzly didn't do anything,
so the whole group started just pelting rocks at it. You're kidding me,
Hey, what are you gonna do? So Jerry grabbed a lart like
a very bad like spoof movie script. By the way, so far like
the fact this is real is very interesting to me. Yeah, it's about
to get crazier because Jerry grabbed a large rock, crept up to the bear
and threw it at the bear's ribs. But the bear did not stop eating.
No shit, No, I think that's pretty crazy. I would assume
that a bear being jabbed in the ribs of the rock would be like,
hey, you know, but they're just not they have so much muscle.
Yeah, and like if the guy is strong to pick up this rock,
I don't think it's gonna be way anything to a bear. So the bear
didn't actually stop until Sharon managed to chuck a rock and hit the bear square
in the nose. How close are they to this fucking thing? By the
way, So Sharon and the girls are like up above the bear, like
on a ledge, like considerable distance away, but Jerry is much closer obviously.
Well, yeah, Jerry just smacked it with a rock, so like
literally try to beat its head. Okay, beat it's ribs in. Yeah,
I don't know why he's so close. I'm just I'm jumping ahead.
I mean you could also untie her and just like walk away because I'm piny.
The bear just doesn't care about you, dude. So they're very simple
thing is to just leave. There are far more things to get upset about
in the story. You just fucking wait. So the bear took off,
momentarily pawing at its face, but just as soon as it took off,
it came right back and this time it headed right up the trail towards the
girls. Oh no way. Jerry told the girls to circle back to the
camp and to get the rest of their stuff, and he would hold off
the bear with all the rocks he gathered in his hands. I'm only laughing
because you're getting so upset. It's just so dumb. So he stood between
the girls and the bear and began throwing stones at it. They did this
kind of dance for a while, where Jerry would hit the bear and had
the bear running off up the trail away from the camp and the girls,
and the bear would come back at him. Jerry would back off, and
then he'd scare the bear away again. This lasted for a while until the
bear just full on charged Jerry. Jerry stood his ground and kept pelting rocks,
but in the last few moments decided to turn and run towards the camp.
When he got back, he saw the bear disappear into the brush.
Relieved, he announced the group that the bear was gone and through a saddle
on sage and got ready to go. Here he comes again. Sharon shouted,
and the bear appeared on the trail. She said she'd hold him off
while Jerry tied the supplies to sage. She walked up to the bear and
threw another rock. I don't know what walked up to means like, I
don't know how close this is. I really my mind is like ten feet.
Yeah, they're going right up to this thing. Like I got full
velocity on this fastball to really scare him away. Yeah, eighty fucking rocks.
You threw it, decide, really did the job so so Weirdly,
after she threw this rock, the bear looked around and then lied down on
the trail and rested its head on its paws and just watched it. He
was talking, shit, maybe that's his way of talking. She's like,
this is really that's all you got. Like I'm just going to bed,
like I'm gonna get you all whenever I want. So. Sharon and the
girls took off, and Jerry did his best to guide the freaking out horse
after them. Once everyone had exited the campsite, the bear got up and
went back to just rummaging through the food. One of the girls took a
second to pull out her Kodak camera and snap a picture of the bear.
They all lived. Spoiler, Oh yeah, I know you got all worked
up for nothing. So they whatever they did worked clearly. Oh I don't
think that's how we're gonna that's not the message. No, that's not the
message here, all right. Cool, So they decided not to report this
issue to rangers. Jerry said, I wish people could see these people are
just so dumb. Well, Jerry said, we'd just be telling them a
teacher. He's a teacher, he said, he is molding the minds of
our parents. This makes so much sense now, he said, we'd just
be telling them something they already know. On account of the trail registers full
of bear complaints. If all the complaints are like this, like this place
had a lot of fucking issues, well, yeah, I mean think about
at the beginning, I said, there was that one problem bear at Trout
Lake that they'd been reporting all summer. She had been harassing other hikers and
stuff in similar ways, and they just weren't doing anything about it. Okay,
yes, but like nowadays they ask you to report now any setting of
a bear ever, like if you just see it out in the woods,
like go go report that. I'm assuming the reports are coming in are like,
oh, it knocked over a trash, can it was eating a fucking
McDonald's hamburger somewhere like sure, shit like that, not just like attacking people,
like to go full blown that getting hit by rocks and shit. Yeah.
So the girl who had taken the picture of the bear took her picture
to the Daily Interlight, which was a newspaper in Kallis Bell, Montana,
and that Thursday, August tenth, the trout Lake Bear was on page one
of the paper, also Today's August tenth A shit. Yes, I specifically
saved this story until it was almost the anniversary of it. Oh yeah,
cool, I like that. Yeah, you're welcome. So the trout Lake
Bear was on page one of the paper, and this was not the first
time that problem bears and Glacier were being written about the Rangers' response to this
dangerous situation that was building. They were busy with the fires, but they'd
see what could be done. I mean, the fires are a big deal.
So I don't want to that's fair, absolutely, I don't. I
don't want to go after Room yet. Well they probably deserve it, but
we're gonna hold off. Okay. It should also be noted that on August
eleventh, the next day, there was an incredible lightning storm that set a
lot of the park on fire, So the rangers were super busy. That's
problem. Now we'll get to Saturday, August twelfth. Joan Devereux, aged
twenty two, who was just out of college with a botany degree, was
a naturalist glacier, and on this day she was leading an overnight hike on
the high Line trail from the Logan Pass to the Granite Park. Shelt I
would also like to point out that this summer, Joan said, was the
first time multiple women were hired onto the park staff. She's going to slip
that right in there. You can interpret it how you like. What was
the year again, nineteen sixty seven? Checks better not be a bad story
or what you mean. I mean if people get attacked and it's the first
year that women were on the staff, Oh my god. Yeah, the
bears were like fuck these women, like you smell that menstrual blood. Wow.
You know that's the thing that some people think is a problem, Like
some people are. I thought it was a thing in the office, wasn't
It was not a joke in the office, Oh, I think so.
Yeah. I mean it's also people think that like if you're on your period,
it'll attract sharks in the water, which is not true. Anyways.
I'm not an expert on peerier blood or sharks, so what no way,
I know shocking. Joan had never done this tour before, but most of
the other skilled rangers who in the book he just said. The men were
off fighting the fires, including dealing with an electrical storm that had happened the
night before, which is the one that I mentioned. But they called it
an electrical storm in the book, which I think is cool in a better
way of saying a lightning storm. I'm sure this guy knows how to fluff
it up a bit. There's a lot of fluff. The group that Joan
was leading total thirty six people and had a wide range of ages, with
the oldest woman being in her sixties and the youngest being a nine month old
secured to his dad's chest. How long is this hike a while? Like
overnight or well they're going like they're hiking to the chalet to spend the night
at the Chalet's good day. I had a nine year nine month will be
in there. That's fine. You're not a fan of that. Well he's
old now, he's like your parents' age. Oh see he made it,
Okay, he's probably yeah, or she was warm my parents, they'd be
whack wild. So the trail was full of berries of varying species, and
Joona assured the hikers that although there was a ton of natural food here,
they were still so close to the going to the Sun road and bears had
never been spotted in this spot. Also, this was a trail that I
hiked in Glacier Oh no shit. And as I was hiking it with my
family, someone passes on the trail and we said, hey, what's up
and he was like, oh, there's a grizzly up there. So just
saying, bears there. They still hang out, no matter how close the
road you are, they're still there. So others in the group began joking
about bears, but Joan was very nervous. She and the other natural set
the park were very concerned about the blatant bear feedings that were happening at the
Grandite Park Chalet, and she was nervous about seeing it firsthand. So I
had told you earlier how trash like the bears were eating trash. Yep,
it's a giant garbage pit that they were putting there, so it was just
like a dump or its just like yeah, basically, which is a big
pile of trash. Yeah, behind the chalet. That's that's how they dealt
with their trash. Just pilot up. Yeah, and you'll soon understand why.
So this place is not elegant at all. No, no, I
had a very different idea of what it is. Yeah. By one thirty,
the group had reached the chalet. They were to take a short rest
and then hike to the Grenelle overlook. As the group took a rest at
the chalet, Joan was by the door when a young couple approached her and
asked where the overnight camping was. Their last name was Clymb. She pointed
down the hill and asked if they brought their quote grizzly repellent and said that
there were grizzlies in the area, but people were still camping in the area,
so that they'd be okay to do the same. Shortly after, a
little girl burstened the room and announced they're here. Joan tried to calmly tell
the group where to watch the bears safely, but no one really listened to
her, and they all elbowed past her. To the balcony to watch the
bears. This time it was a young, silver tipped grizzly. Unlike everyone
else, Joan was not excited. She and the other naturalists agreed that this
was a disaster waiting to happen, especially as some people left the balcony to
get closer to the bear. Nice. So there are some other people at
the chalet that we need to introduce because they are important characters. But you'll
understand why later. So the first one is doctor Oldgeared Lindon, who was
staying at the chalet in August twelfth with his son Nick. Hey, what
up, it's not you. Wow. Doctor Linden was an associate professor of
medicine at Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Was born in Latvia and was overall
a baller. Fuck yeah. He had been a doctor in Africa, had
lived in Russia, Poland, and England, crossed the Sahara Desert, and
once walked from the southeast corner of France across Andorra in Spain and into Portugal
to escape the Nazis. Damn, yeah, I like this guy. Yeah.
It was noted a lot in the book that people couldn't really understand him
because he had lived in all of these places, so his accent was like
a little bit from each of these places. So he just he's like his
own human pretty much. Yeah, which, like I said, he's bothered.
I like it. Please tell me, like goes on nick arm wrestles
the bear or something like that. Oh sorry, puts in her rear naked
chocold No sorry, does he get eaten? Just listen, god oh man.
There were also two men in a hike there together, but kept themselves
and did not participate in oogling at the bears. There was thirty eight year
old Reverend Thomas Connolly and Steve Pierre, who is a Native American from Kalispell.
Everyone in the book and in the documentary call him an Indian. He
I never heard him. Spoiler he's in the documentary the PBS one. He
doesn't himself an Indian. So I'm just gonna keep saying Native American, because
what if he's from the country of India. He's not. He's Native American.
Did he say his Native American. We'll get into it, but yes,
it it becomes very clear that he is the Native Clear he doesn't say
it, So shut up. Listen. They had hiked all day long and
came to get dinner and sleep on the floor of the chalet. Thomas worked
at the Indian Community Center in Spokane with impoverished Native Americans, and Steve worked
there as a counselor. There is that good for you? Oh? Yeah
cool. When someone had shadowed that the bears had arrived, these two stayed
to finish their meal. When they were done, they wandered out to the
balcony to see the fuss, and they saw a big grizzly eating trash.
Angrily. Steve said, those crazy white people. They don't know anything about
bears. They don't know what they're doing. Thomas was also bothered by this
grizzly behavior. I like these guys. Yep, they're great. Doctor John
Lipinski, a surgeon, was also at the chalet this night with his wife,
who was a nurse, and their sixteen year old daughter, Teres,
and their four and five year old adopted Before bed, Terese told her parents
that she had asked a shllet employee earlier in the night about the bears and
where they came from. The employee told her that the bears came to eat
the garbage that they put out, and when Teresa asked if this was dangerous,
the employee told her that, quote, the people come up here to
see the grizzlies and we have to show them some it means good advertising,
I guess not for all. No, this is so stupid. You're in
Glacier, They're everywhere. So this wasn't too odd to doctor Lipinski because years
before he had hiked into Yellowstone to see grizzlies that were being fed and was
awoken one night by rangers shooting the bears that had lost their fear of people.
So good, good, good, this is this is awesome. Yeah.
I think we've talked before, right, how bears used to be like
legitimately fed as like a show in national parks. I don't know if we
have actually maybe it's come up once or twice, maybe se briefly maybe.
Yeah, yeah, that's the thing they used to have, like literally like
shadium steading stadium seating where you could watch Yeah, ridiculous, I just watched
wild animals get food. Yep. He So doctor Lipinski assumed that like Yellowstone,
any bear here in Glacier that had lost its fear of people would be
shot to Anne, the mother, however, was not convinced that this was
safe. She was brought up in a Polish section of Chicago and was convinced
that anything as big as a grizzly was dangerous and deadly, no matter what.
Be like. Anne. Yeah. Meanwhile, twenty three year old Robert
and Janet Kleine were asking about sleeping on the floor of the chalet. They
had been in an argument earlier about camping outside multiple times that their hike on
this day, other groups asked them if they'd heard about the grizzlies and if
they'd be sleeping outside. Robert was not convinced that the bears were big enough
of the threat to ruin their plans, but Janet, who was a foot
shorter than her husband and barely one hundred pounds, said that Robert could sleep
outside all he wanted, but she was staying at the chalet. And it
wasn't until Joan had said something to them that Robert agreed to stay at the
chalet as well. But the man running the chalet said to be twenty five
dollars to sleep on the floor and for three meals. I mean that is
a lot, is it? To not be eaten? Okay. When Robert
pushed back in the prey, the man said he couldn't make exceptions for anyone
and that people had been camping outside all summer and quote no one had been
eaten yet. I really hate when they do stuff like this, But hey,
let's just jinx it, yeah, right, like knock on some wood
or something like that. Just bad ideas. The men laughed, but Janet
was only further convinced that the money sleep on the floor was worth it.
Robert went on a short hike to think it all over. Meanwhile, Janet
met another hiker named Don Gullet from California, and he said he'd sticked out
a nice camping spot and wasn't worried about the bears. He said it was
several hundred yards from the campground, right near the trail cabin, so when
Robert got back, they all went down to check it out. Janet began
to doubt herself and wonder if she was overreacting and quote ruining her husband's enjoyment.
Women, don't do this. Don't doubt yourself because of a man.
Just assume that your gut is correct, because a lot of times it is
just saying and don't get you by bear. Yeah, well, if you
listen to your gut, that could happen so or that I'd be wrong and
ruined your husband's night of hiking. Yeah, and then you know nothing happen.
Still not die? Its crazy right? Yes, it was a nice
spot for sure, and the trail cabin had criss cross wood on the sides
that provided a kind of natural ladder to a flat roof, so Don convinced
them that they could get to the roof in no time if they needed to
escape a bear. She had it approved and they all made camp about twenty
feet from the cabin, with the Clins on one side and Don on the
other. The clein couple was prepared to eat dinner when a teenage couple arrived
and asked where the campground was. Robert pointed to the left, and the
boy, who was about eighteen years old named Roy, asked why the three
were camping here and not at the campground. Janet told them it was because
they were afraid of the bears. Roy and his girlfriend Julie said that they
were headed to the area where they were developing a campground because the chalet was
so full. After some chit chatting. Roy and Julie made their way to
the campground, and the clients finished their dinner, then took all their garbage
to the chalet's trash cans. They returned to their camp, hauled their provisions
into a tree, got into their sleeping bags, but before bed, they
went over their plan on what to do if the bears arrived. I like
this, yeah, okay, they're taking not necessary risk. Yeah, but
there's yeah, yeah, all right, I'm back on board. I'm back
on board. Good Okay, So now let's get back to Roy Ducat and
Julie Helgeson. Roy Ducat was a bus boy for the summer at East Glacier
Lodge and had grown up in Ohio. He was eighteen and a sophomore biology
student. Julie Helgeson was from Minnesota, nineteen years old and a sophomore at
the University of Minnesota. She'd been there for two months in Glacier, working
in the laundry room at East Glacier Lodge. She had just said goodbye to
her parents, who were visiting the park for a few days, and this
was her first overnight hike. She had only recently met Roy, but they
decided to do the hike together. It was around eight pm when they reached
the newly developing campground, which had tables and signs strewn about but was not
yet set up. Like I said previously, they'd wanted to stay at the
chalet, but it was full, so they headed to this spot with some
bag meals that they got from the chalet. They had briefly heard about the
bears being fed at the chalet, but this spot was in the opposite direction
from that, so they didn't really think too much about the bears. When
they finished their dinners, Roy stashed their dinner remains under a log nearby.
They slept in their clothes they had hiked in, gotten their sleeping bags for
the night, and talked a bit until the sun set. Oh sounds like
a nice night, yeah, I will say. In the doc Couentry,
one person says that they were like the sweetest couple he had ever met in
his life, and that they were like the nicest people he'd ever met.
I mean they just meet, yeah, but they were in love. It's
so cute. Summer sixty seven, baby. So on the same day,
in a different part of glacier, a group of young people and a puppy,
a shepherd mixed named squirt It last quir we're making their way to Trout
Lake. There were five of them if you include squirt. Yeah, it
was gonna ask yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. There were six of them
if you include squirt Oh. Okay. So we're gonna refer to them as
all sex from this point forward. God, that's not what my notes say,
but I'll try to remember that. I'll correct you every time. Great.
So, all the humans in this group were concession employees at the park,
and they were all seasoned hikers except for one, sixteen year old Paul
Dunn. He'd arrived three weeks earlier, visiting the park with his parents,
and then took a job as a bus boy, which I feel like is
a wild thing to do, to be like, I'm just gonna stay here.
Bye. Mom. So, the two couples of the group had asked
Paul if he wanted to join their overnight trip to Trout Lake, and he
eagerly said yes. Paul had heard nothing about the grizzly activity this summer,
and hadn't even heard much about Trout Lake because he was stationed on the other
side of the park. He and his parents had attended a ranger talk when
he first arrived, but all he remembered from it was ranger saying that a
bear will not attack you if you don't attack it, and to climb a
tree if you see one, and they also mentioned never take a dog on
the trail. Dogs and bears do not mix. Oh squirt, dang it.
The couple had told Paul that dogs were allowed in the park so long
as they were on a leash under control of their owners, but this was
not true. Under no circumstances were dogs allowed on trails, and that rule
is still true today. Dang it. Twenty year old Denise Huckle made up
one half of these couples, and she had found Squirt abandoned at the park.
What I know, Holy squirt. Yeah, there's a picture here in
the documentary. He's pretty cute. I mean it's a German shapeer puppies,
so are they all the best? Correct? She had found a strong cord
at Lake McDonald Lodge and used this as a leash for the puppy. There
were also Ray and Ron no Sek. Ray was twenty three, Ron was
twenty one, and they were brothers from Arizona. It is confusing that their
names are very similar. I will do my best to remind you who was
who. That's pretty sick summer trip though, Like go drive from Arizona up
to Montana and go to the glacier Like, it's pretty sick. Well,
they were both attending dental school but worked at the park for the summer.
Oh that's so much cooler. Yeah, So basically like all the young people
in this story, beside the Cleines, worked at the park. Oh cool.
Ron was Denise's date for this trip, and Ray was the date of
Michelle Coons, who was nineteen, who was from San Diego, California.
She was going to her second year at California Western University, and she worked
in the gift shop at the Lake McDonald lodge, and her boss described her
as quote a blessing because everyone loved Michelle. It's really nice, a really
cool. You know, everyone seems like incredibly nice in this story. So
far, I thought I was gonna really hate them from no, my first
of their names. So no, this is all right. So Michelle had
been in Trout Lake many times this summer, and unlike Paul, was very
aware of the dangers grizzly post grizzlies post because she was very little and like
me, was probably like afraid of most things, actually maybe not. She
camped out in the fucking woods under the stars, and I can never do
that. So you wouldn't do that in New Hampshire, Like if it was
like a nice night out, you wouldn't just go sleep in a super bag.
No, but just kis the mosquitoes. That's fair, thank you,
that's fair. Yeah, So, unlike Michelle, none of the other young
people in the group were afraid of bears. Around five pm, this group
reached the log Jam campground, which is the same campground that the Girl Scouts
had been at a few days before. And let me just take a second
to describe what I mean when I say Logjam campground. So Trout Lake there
was literally a log jam like logs across the lake that bears used as basically
a highway to traverse across. So they camped near this logjam. That's it.
She's a bad idea to be where the bear's going to be. But
I don't think at the time they realized that the bears used it so frequently.
Oh so, there were a couple of fishermen president who told the group
that the previous day they had been treated for a couple hours by very aggressive
grizzly, So there they found out what the fuck? Yeah, but the
young group thought that it was part of the fun. They knew that no
one had been killed by a grizzly and assumed no one ever would be.
Okay, that's a that's a bad one. Yeah. They took a few
minutes to set up their camp and jammed all their food into a pack and
hauled it into a tree. Then they ran right to the lake to go
fishing. Michelle stayed behind with Squirt and continued to set up the camp for
the next few hours. Michelle was sitting on a tree stump as Paul cooked
a trout he caught, and she peered into the woods and saw a large
dark form coming towards them. She jumped up and yelled. Bare Ron unleashed
Squirt and scooped him up in his arms, and the group took off up
the lake shore away from the campsite. They stopped fifty yards away as a
scrawny grizzly wandered around their campsite and ate all their food, then grabbed a
pack and ran off. The bear stayed for about fifteen to twenty minutes,
tearing through their camp. The group decided to give up on that campsite and
began gathering wood for a new fire with Squirt and Denise Arms. I would
probably be out of there as soon as possible, like once one bad interaction
happens, like the fact these people are like, oh, let's find a
way to stay impressive in a way. Yeah, I agree. You would
never catch me doing this. I am way too afraid of things to be
like, you know what, maybe fifty feet away over here is fine,
you know. Yeah, No, it's just again really stupid. But I
mean that's knowing what we know now. Maybe if it was back then and
nothing bad it ever happened, we might think something differently. But who knows,
I guess. But like, no one's been attacked by an orca whale
in the wild. If I'm swimming with an orca, I want to get
the fuck out the water. Hey, that's not something that i'd be cool
with. Recently, there have been a lot of orcas sinking boats in Portugal.
I'm gonna post a story on our Facebook page. Keep an eye out.
Oh shit, yeah, my mom, Oh they're definitely gonna kill somebody
eventually, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just gonna happen
yep. Anyways, so the grizz they went off into the woods and the
group debated their next move. It was dark, so they throughout the idea
of going to Lake McDonald Rangers day. They also thought about the Arrow Lake
Shelter cabin, but that idea was also quickly thrown out because it was already
full of weekend campers and was two miles away. So basically it was either
a stay put or hike out in the dark. I would hike out in
the dark. I know it's not risky modern day and ya, because they
do want gps IS and the ship. But yeah, nothing. If you
know how to read it, Matt, you can at least find a road
or something. Maybe. So a few minutes past with no bear siding again,
so Paul and no Sex went to grab their major their supplies from the
old camp and bring them over to their new site at the edge of the
lake. To keep the bears away, they decided to keep the fire going
all night and stacked a pile of wood between them and their camp as a
means to block themselves off from it. What pile can you make in a
couple hours? Yeah, probably not that big of a yeah. So they
arranged their sleeping bags in a semicircle and tried to sleep. Denise put the
end of squirts leash around a log next to the fire, and he slept
between the log and her sleeping bag. Oh squirt. Now let's get back
to Anne, the nurse and the wife of surgeon doctor Lipinski. She had
been awoken that night by a mouse eating some of her husband's ca and like
I said, they're at the chalet, so like, now it's nighttime at
the Chileet as well. Yeah. They put the candy in a waste basket
on their porch, then tried to go back to sleep. Anne was awoken
again by what she thought was a mouse nibbling on her foot, So she
was like, I'm just gonna be up and to sit here and be anxious
for a while, which I respect. It was not long before she heard
a woman scream outside from where she assumed the outdoor bathroom was. That would
be so fucking sketchy. This story gets spooky. Oh fuck. She woke
her husband said, John, there's a lady in trouble. Did you hear
that scream? And he responded with why would a lady be screaming up here?
Anne said she thought a woman was in the bathroom and that someone was
bothering her, and doctor Lipinski said, Ann, a lady wouldn't be screaming
out here and went back to sleep. Not long after the first scream,
Anne heard a second scream from the same direction. She woke her husband again
and he once again said she was imagining things. She said she really thought
someone was bothering woman bathroom, and he responded with, quote, a man
wouldn't bother a woman up here. People just aren't like that around here.
First of all, you're wrong. Second, do not gaslight? And okay,
An, this is really fucked. This is fucked on like multiple levels.
Yeah, it keeps getting there. So Anne was certain that she had
heard a woman scream, but put her head on her pillow nonetheless, and
began wondering how she'd convinced her husband of the screams. Who the fuck cares
go help? What is she? But she's so terrified, She's like,
I'm not gonna go up. You go, you walk, you go find
who's screaming. You don't have to actively do anything. Just go find the
person. Yeah, no one's asking you go like shoot a guy, like
you just have to go walk over there and see what's happening so you can
get other people if you need to. It's that simple. I would start
screaming until someone responded to me, to be quite honest, anyway, fuck.
Then a third scream erupted, and this one immediately got both Flapinski's to
who their feet and out onto the balcony. Oh God. From there they
heard get out, get out, get away from me. They then heard
clearly, God help me, he's stabbing me, and then silence, and
then God helped me. Somebody helped me. I is really fucking dumb.
I think this is a good place to stop, don't you. Ah No,
I know you want to keep going, but we're about an hour in
and from here it gets bananas, So I think that's a good cliffhanger to
leave Part one on. Okay, okay, okay, cool, mostly because
I need more water. I am very parched from all of this. Any
snack, I'm hungry? Yeah, all right, everyone. So that was
part one of Night of the Grizzlies in Glacier Park. Part two. We
will be talking obviously about the attacks that happened. Spoiler people get attacked in
this story, so we don't have Thatt's hack for this episode. Unfortunately,
we have some bad encounters with some bad counters, yeah, for sure,
and the start of something madness. Yeah. Well if it's not even a
bear, which is like a dude stab and shit, honestly, you don't
know. Wait, this is our transition to the crime podcast. Yeah,
actually yeah, god, no, fuck that. So if you would like
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