February 9, 2018  Michelle Tanz

Reflecting on a recovering but endangered landscape while following grizzly tracks up a remote peak

My skis glided on the consolidated spring snowpack. I peered up at the col above –our next destination – wondering how we would navigate the terrain as the sun triggered cascading wet slides in the saturated snow. An animal track caught my eye and I skinned towards it. The five-clawed prints dwarfed my own feet. Grizzly tracks. I had been warned about Big Brother, the grizzly bear, whose territory I was passing through. But the footprints followed the least avalanche-prone route.

My partner Andrew and I were deep in Unist’ot’en territory, a clan of the indigenous Wet’suwet’en Nation near the town of Houston, in so-called British Columbia. […]

Read Michelle’s complete article on Mt. Baker Experience Magazine here.