Throwback Thursday

If you worked at a lonely outpost in the middle of the Glacier National Park wilderness, how would you protect yourself against grizzly bears? At the Numa Ridge Lookout the fire lookouts use a heavy wooden panel with 200 spikes driven into it. With its sharp points sticking out three inches, the panel is dropped in place on the stairway each night in order to prevent grizzlies from climbing the stairs and entering the sleeping quarters! One of the lookouts to experience Numa Ridge first hand was Edward Abbey, the author of the Monkey Wrench Gang. After spending the summer of 1975 manning the lookout, he summed-up his experience by saying: “Bears, beans, bores and bugs: Numa Ridge Lookout.”



You can read a short history about Glacier’s lookouts by clicking here .







Jeff

HikingintheSmokys.com