A common experience for anyone backpacking in many of the western national parks is the bear talk, park ranger provided tips on how to prepare for and deal with encounters with bears in the wilderness.

One of the points made is usually identifying the bear, whether it’s a grizzly or the more common black bear. Common wisdom has been that you’re much more likely to be in danger from a grizzly then a black bear. That common wisdom may be about to change.

Black bear populations are on the rise, especially east of the Mississippi, where they are much more likely to encounter human beings. In fact, black bear encounters, are increasingly common, there were more than 15,000 last year. The scary part is, attacks from black bears are also increasing.

That means at least a couple of things for hikers and campers. One, learning about how to handle a bear encounter isn’t going to be restricted to hikers in the west anymore, and two, identifying the bear you encounter as a black bear is no longer as good an indication that you’re likely in no danger as it used to be. There are more bears in the woods than before, and more people living near and spending time in those woods. That means bear encounters will continue to increase. People will just have to learn how to deal with it, for their own sake, and that of the bears.

The Appalachian Trail may be more famous, running as it does along the eastern side of the United States, but if you’re looking for a long-distance hike the goes east-west instead of north-south, ther North Country Trail could be just the ticket to the hike of a lifetime.

Just ask Andrew Skurka, a legend of long-distance backpacking who did exactly that in 2004, spending six months walking west from New York thousands of miles to the trail’s terminus in North Dakota. “It just went on and on and on,” he said.

Established in 1980, the North Country Trail is a work in progress, now about halfway completed. From its eastern trailhead at Crown Point and the shore of Lake Champlain in upstate New York, hikers follow more than 1,000 miles of newly cut trails as well as abandoned railroad beds and canal towpaths, detours through state parks and national forests, and miles of dirt roads called connector routes. This patchwork unites existing trail networks like the Finger Lakes Trail in New York, the Buckeye Trail in Ohio and the Superior Hiking Trail in Minnesota to create the cross-country route.

So a guy from Minnesota could conceivably hop a plane or train to New York and then…hike home. Wouldn’t that be fun.

It’s 4 degrees this morning in Minneapolis, with a 20 mph wind straight out of the arctic circle. That makes it a lot better morning for thinking about past hiking trips than venturing out on any new ones. So here’s a story from my third trip to Glacier National Park, a three night backpacking trip over Gunsight Pass to Lake Ellen Wilson and back. With goats.

The trip started at the St. Mary Visitor Center where I stopped to pick up my hiking permit. While I was filling out the form, the ranger was talking to the group ahead of me, whe were pretty obviously embarking on their first backpacking trip. She was giving them the usual advice about not cutting switchbacks and avoiding bears she made a point that I thought surprised a few of them. She told them that large animals like moose and mountain sheep often use the trails themselves, and that if they met such an animal on the trail it was teir responsibility to get out of the way. When it came to who had the right of way, it was animals over hikers.

So I got my permit and hit the trail, which cuts right through the middle of the park. By the second night I was camped at Lake Ellen Wilson. The campsites there are set in the middle of a field of huge glacial boulders, the nearby meadows was inhabited by several mule deer, bouncing through the tall bear grass like giant jackrabbits, and the view down the valley was a thing top behold.

The backcountry campsites in Glacier have communal eating areas, and at Lake Ellen Wilson it’s surrounded by the big boulders. Several of us camped there that night were cooking up some dinner when a big old mountain goat walks right through the middle of camp and climbed up on one of the boulders right next to where we were eating. He showed no interest in us or our food, but was in a prime spot to catch the last rays of the setting sun. I silently vowed to never again hike without a camera.

The next morning I left my gear behind and hiked farther up the trail to Sperry Glacier. I had the afternoon to hike back over the pass, and so far the weather had been perfect. Got back to Ellen Wilson about 2 PM, and just as I was picking up my backpack, dark clouds came pouring over the pass. By the time i reached the switchbacks, the rain was coming down in sheets, driven by a thirty mile an hour wind coming straight down the mountain. Soaking wet and cold in about ten seconds, I silently vowed to never again hike with cheap, untested rain gear. The one thing I had going for me was that I knew there was a shelter cabin at the top of the pass, where I could dry off. The only thing to do was head up the trail.

Wins and rain pushing against you every step of the way is a fairly unpleasant way to hike, and by the third or fourth switchback I was feeling pretty miserable. I looked up the trail, and coming down towards me was another mountain goat, looking ever bit as unhappy with the weather as I was. We got to within about ten yards of each other a which point we both stopped. That’s when I started wondering if he’d been listening to the same ranger’s lecture I’d heard a couple of days before, because it was apparent from his demeanor and stance that that goat not only wanted me to get out of his way, he expected it. So I scrambled up off the trail, and when I’d gotten far enough away for his liking, he put his head down and proceeded down the trail.

I eventually made it to the top and got dry and warm. Every backpacking trip teaches you something, and on this one I had learned about bringing a camera, the importance of good rain gear, and that, in Glacier Park at least, the animals not only have the right of way, they know it.

No camera of course means that I have no photos to share from that trip. But a perusal of Youtube found plenty of videos of hikers in Glacier park, including these two documenting encounters with wildlife along the trail to Gunsight Pass.

Two women hikers in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area had a little bit more of an adventure than they planned for when they lost their trail this week and spent an extra four days in the woods trying to find their way out.

They were found today, no worse for wear, and that’s good news for them, their friends and family.

The women had gone to a high spot to be more visible to the searching aircraft, said (Cook County Sheriff Mark) Falk. The crew of a state patrol helicopter spotted them waving around 3:30 p.m. today.

A search team on foot was directed to their direction while the helicopter set down nearby, and the women were guided back to the helicopter by searchers on the ground, Falk said.

After interviewing the women Falk told reporters that they “lost the trail” on Monday between Howard and Bingschick Lakes and had been trying to find their way out since then.

They started fires but kept them small because they were worried about fire danger, Falk said. He said they “kept going to high spots” and wore bright clothing to make themselves more visible.

He said they also changed their positions on the ground based on the path of the search aircraft they saw periodically, again to make themselves more visible.

“They did everything right,” Falk said. We just didn’t spot them right away.

The women were experienced backpackers and, as the Sheriff said, did all the right things, including not panicking and knowing that people would be looking for them when they were over due. That’s a good lesson for anyone who finds themselves lost in the woods.

It happened to me once. I lost a trail in the Spanish Peaks Wilderness in Montana. The big advantage I had over the two women in the BWCA id that the terrain there is much more open, and finding my way was a matter of locating a couple of landmarks on my topo map and then heading to a lake where I knew I could re-connect with the trail. But it was easy to see how someone could become disoriented and lose their way, it was amazing at the time how quickly that trail disappeared on me.

Here’s some good news for those of us who think that just about the best way to enjoy the outdoors is to take a hike.

Hikers, cyclists, skaters, equestrians and paddlers will have more territory to explore this season. To mark the 40th anniversary of the National Trails System, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has designated 24 trails in 16 states as new National Recreation Trails, adding more than 1,100 miles of trails to the National Trails System.

If you’re wondering if there’s a National Trail near where you live, you can find out more, including locations, here.