Tuesday morning at 7:30 am my cell phone rings. Donna's at work already and she doesn't need a sub yet. Look at the phone........cousin Randy in Helena.

"Hello, and what the hell do you want
at 7;30 in the morning?"

"And good morning to you. Hey, you want to go 4 wheeling today up at the cabin? There's one of our companies big-wigs here from Miami and he brought his daughter along who is Human Resource director for the company. Thought we could take them up to Granite Butte lookout so they could take some pictures and see the scenery."

"What time do you plan on this? I'm 2 1/2 hours away, at best."

"Oh, we're not leaving my house (in Helena) until 10 or so. Gonna go have breakfast at Smitty's then head up."

"OK....hey Randy, get me a double order of his hashbrowns to go. I can heat them on the engine when we get up to the lookout." (done this before)

"OK...see you at the cabin."

I get there only 10 minutes after Randy and his company get there. He's got the 4-wheelers gassed up and supplies on board (beer, guns, tow rope and more beer.)

We get set and get our radios in our helmets all tuned to the same frequency so we can talk to each other. Jim rides with Randy and I get the delightful task of having his daughter, Connie, sit behind me. She's never been on a 4-wheeler, and before we've gone 1 mile she has a bear hug around my waist like there's no tomorrow. I was thinking of telling her to loosen her grip, but what the hell. She's kinda cute and I sure wasn't going to spoil her fun.

We take them through the big burn from last summer, show them the remains of a large mansion from the 1880's that burned, and head up the last leg toward Granite Butte Lookout.

About 300 yards from the top there is a large snowfield that still has 6 feet of snow. Randy and I had previously cut a path through it so it was like a tunnel with 6 foot walls on each side. I stopped short of the snowfield and put my hand up to stop Randy, behind me.

"Somethings not right here Randy. Can you smell something?"

Yeh, but where's it coming from?"

"I'm not sure, but listen.....there are no birds chirping...no camp robbers squawking. Nothing."

I stand up slowly on my 4-wheeler and look around over the snowfield.

"Everyone be absolutely quiet. Randy, 2 O'clock at about 150 yards."

"Holy crap....and there's a cub with her."

"Make that two cubs Randy. Check to the right about 100 feet. Connie, real carefully reach back into the carry box, lift the cover slowly and hand me that gun. And don't put your finger on the trigger. It's loaded and ready to fire."

She hands me the gun and is shaking like a Wisconsin Quaking Aspen in the wind.

"Bob, tell me that's a black bear. They're not as dangerous are they?"

"That's a Grizzly, Connie, and she hasn't spotted or smelled us yet. We're downwind from her so that's in our favor."

We back down the trail slowly and then get turned around and head off in another direction, still aiming to get to the lookout. We get up to the lookout from the other side, which has a wide open approach. No Bear or cubs. Randy and Jim and Connie climb up the lookout and are taking pictures. Dumb-ass me heads off to were the bears were last seen.

I signal for Randy to put his helmet on so I can talk to him."

"Fresh deer kill here. Momma and Huey and Louie are probably not to far away. Probably watching me right now. Hope I don't look to much like the main dinner course."

"Bob, I can see them in the thicket about 75 yards from you. Get on back up here, before they decide to find out what you taste like."

I head back to the lookout...we never saw the bears again, but Connie was still shaking all the way back down to the cabin.

"I've walked the streets of Miami at night and haven't been as scared as I was just now. I thought I was going to pee my pants up there."

"If you'd have done that on those hot seats, you'd have been walking back down to the cabin."

I hope they had a good time.....I sure did.

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