Glacier National Park closes trail after bear injures hiker

MISSOULA – Officials in Glacier National Park closed a portion of the Highline Trail on Thursday after a bear injured a hiker early that morning.

According to an announcement from Gina Icenoggle, the park’s public information officer, the famed trail is closed from Granite Park Chalet on the north to Haystack Butte on the south – about a 4.9-mile stretch that also provides access to the Grinnell Glacier Overlook out-and-back trail. The trail and bear encounter location are located up the mountain and approximately 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 among a group of hikers who encountered the bear near Grinnell Glacier Overlook trailhead on the Highline Trail, which is about 0.7 miles southeast on the trail from Granite Park Chalet and sits at about 6,590 feet elevation.

“The species of bear is still under investigation,” she wrote. “The closure will remain in place until further notice.”

The injured hiker was able to hike to Granite Park Chalet “with assistance from rangers and other hikers,” she wrote, and he was then flown by a Two Bear Air helicopter to the Apgar horse corrals.

From there, Three Rivers Ambulance transported him to a hospital in Whitefish.

The announcement did not elaborate on the nature of the bear encounter or the hiker’s condition.

Glacier National Park is home to as many as 300 grizzly bears and 600 black bears, according to the National Park Service. The park anchors the northern end of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, one of six recovery zones for grizzlies, which since 1975 have been listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. The NCDE, which also encompasses the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex south of Glacier and extends nearly to Missoula, is home to the most grizzlies in the Lower 48, slightly edging out the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with more than 1,100 bears.

Thursday’s announcement of the bear encounter and trail closure also encouraged visitors to the park to travel in groups, make noise while hiking, carry bear spray and know how to use it.