Officials in Glacier National Park closed a section of the Highline Trail on Thursday after a bear injured a hiker early in the morning.
According to an announcement from Gina Icenoggle, the park’s spokesperson, the famous trail is closed from Granite Park Chalet in the north to Haystack Butte in the south – a 4.9-mile stretch that also provides access to the Grinnell Glacier Overlook out-and-back trail. The trail and bear-encounter area are located at the top of the mountain and roughly northeast of the upper switchback (above “The Loop”) on the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Icenoggle wrote that a bear inflicted “non-life-threatening injuries” on a 35-year-old man hiking the Highline Trail. The man was part of a group of hikers who encountered the bear near the Grinnell Glacier Overlook Trailhead on the Highline Trail, which is about 0.7 miles southeast of the Granite Park Chalet at an elevation of about 6,500 feet.
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“The bear species is still under investigation,” she wrote. “The closure will remain in place until further notice.”
The injured hiker was able to hike to the Granite Park Chalet”with assistance from rangers and other hikers,” she wrote, and he was then flown by Two Bear Air helicopter to the Apgar Horse Corral. From there, Three Rivers Ambulance transported him to a hospital in Whitefish.
The statement did not provide any further details about the nature of the encounter with the bear or the condition of the hiker.
Glacier National Park is home to up to 300 grizzly bears and 600 black bears, according to the National Park Service. The park is located at the northern end of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, one of six grizzly bear recovery areas listed as “endangered” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act since 1975. The NCDE, which also includes the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex south of Glacier and stretches almost to Missoula, is home to the most grizzly bears in the Lower 48, just ahead of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with over 1,100 bears.
The bear encounter and the closure of the hiking trail announced on Thursday also urged park visitors to travel in groups, make noise while hiking, carry bear spray and know how to use it.
Joshua Murdock covers nature and natural resources for the Missoulian. He was previously editor in chief of the Boulder Monitor in Jefferson County, Montana, and worked as a newspaper reporter and photographer in rural towns in Idaho and Utah.
