Bear!

On Thursday, we were visited by a Grizzly Bear native to our valley! Armed with a radio, we were kept updated by hearing Ski Patrol's channel as they tried to block it from coming in to the village. They succeed (unfortunately, since I never got to see the beast!), but it got very close and I had to put out messages to both guests and other departments, reporting the closure of chairlifts which the bear was wandering around. A girl at the top of Waterfall was shouted at to get moving since there was a bear in the area- she looked around and saw it walking through the trees! So she slid all the way down the run to get away from it as fast as possible!

The best place to see it was from the HR building in Arnica, and on the other side of the village on the other mountains. The following photos were taken by members of HR:

A Bear Bum (in both senses) on Wawa

Making his way up Standish

Moving on to pastures new

Just for the scale of the beast!

The bear wandered through the ski out and Wolverine (but these were both closed), then up through Wawa and Standish (which we had to close), before leaving our area at the top of Standish. The scary thing was hearing the patrollers as they discussed how to shoo the 'big boy' away, and also the speed at which it came through the area (it was keeping a pretty consistent 10kph the whole time, and patrol needed the skidoos to keep up). Luckily, though, it was much easier for it to keep to the open trails and it was therefore a lot easier to keep track of.

Excitement over, the lifts were re-opened and it just turned back into a normal Thursday.