Bears! Moose! Elk! And more!

It was a crazy day. We planned hiking to Buller Pass, but we didn’t know it involves driving a loooong bumpy gravel road (Smith Dorrien/Spray Lakes Trail) to the trailhead. Plus, after we already made around 1/3 of the way, we noticed we forgot to refuel the car… Oh no! Well, our stupidity turned out to have a good side after all. Because after we drove back and refuelled, we could see a lot of Canadian animals on the road!

First one was a coyote, then beautiful white mountain goats, even with a baby goat. As we spotted the bighorn sheep, we drove past with as much distance as possible ‘cause you don’t want to have their massive horns ramming the car, right…? It continued with elk (Wapiti) and white-tailed deer. But one of our highlights was still to come: a female moose crossing the street! Unfortunately, she was gone so fast, it was impossible to take a picture. Next highlight was our first bear sighting! It was a beautiful one, probably a black bear with golden-coloured fur, maybe 50 m away (yes, black bears can come in almost every colour).

Well, as we started our hike, we were pretty excited as the whole area is clearly bear territory. So we tried to talk loudly all the way or sing some songs, even more than on the hikes before. Though you sometimes feel a little like a maniac walking around and just starting to sing “Mamma Mia” or “Eye of the Tiger”. But it worked out. There was still some snow close to Buller Pass, but a great hike all in all. The remains of the last forest fires burning huge areas were clearly visible, which was also pretty impressive.

After the hike, we even saw the second bear, this time a Grizzly! It was trotting along the road, this time only ca. 10 m away. It looked so fluffy and nice like a teddy bear, but still majestic and impressive so you don’t want to meet it without a secure car between you and the bear (though we imagined Grizzlies to be taller). Amazing.