IRON & ELBOW PASSES
My Boy Scout breakfast of oats, milk powder and water in a Ziploc bag sure went down well that morning. But I had that nagging feeling and humming legs that I’d be out the back before I knew it and I’d be chasing all day to try catch and capture the group. However, thankfully the pace on day two was a little more civilised for this greying photographer who by now was thinking he’d probably bitten off more than he could chew.
Speaking of chewing, our pilot had mentioned on the way in that he’d seen two families of grizzlies on the way to Iron Pass and that we should keep our eyes and ears open. I had my doubts we’d see any given the size of our group but there they were, just as described. We stood looking in awe, from a distance, at a family frolicking and foraging in the pastures below us.
The rest of this 10-hour day was just sublime, tough but sublime nevertheless. The passes were hard, but the hardest part of all was probably as we rolled through the Bearclaw camp heading to our own cowboy camp, watching with some degree of longing at another group of riders tucking into cold beers.
