Gutsy wrangler, huge horse save boy from charging grizzly
Erin Bolster, a wrangler for Swan Mountain Outfitters near Glacier Park, poses with her horse, Tonk.
Grizzlies are high profile this year.
A
lingering winter and late berry crop kept bears in proximity to humans
longer than normal, perhaps contributing to a stream of headlines about
grizzlies killing people and people killing grizzlies.
Meanwhile, a
young lady on a big horse charged out of the pack of grizzly stories
near Glacier National Park. In a cloud of dust, the 25-year-old wrangler
likely saved a boy’s life while demonstrating that skill,
quick-thinking and guts sometimes are the best weapons against a head-on
charging grizzly.
On July 30, Erin Bolster of Swan Mountain
Outfitters was guiding eight clients on a horse ride on the Flathead
National Forest between West Glacier and Hungry Horse, Mont.
“It’s
the shortest ride we offer,” she said Wednesday, recalling the
incident. “We’d already led two trips that morning. It’s always been a
very routine hour-long loop, until that day.”
The group included a
family of six plus a vacationing Illinois man, who’d booked the trip
for his 8-year-old son’s first horse-riding experience.
The young
boy was riding Scout, a steady obedient mount, following directly behind
Bolster, who was leading the group on Tonk, a burly 10-year-old white
horse of questionable lineage.
Tonk isn’t the typical trail
mount. Best anyone knows, he’s the result of cross-breeding a quarter
horse with a Percheron – a draft horse. Bolster is 5-foot-10, yet she
relies on her athleticism to climb into the saddle aboard Tonk.
“He
was one of the horses we lease from Wyoming and bring in every year,”
Bolster said, noting that she’d picked him from the stable in May to be
hers for the season.
“He’s a very large horse – 18 hands high.
That intimidates a lot of riders. But I’ve always loved big horses. He’s
kind of high-strung and spooky, the largest of our wrangling horses. I
like a horse with a lot of spirit, and I was really glad to be on him
that day.”
Bolster has accumulated a wealth of experience on and
around horses of national and even world class. She started riding at 4
years old, became a pro trainer at 15, graduated from high school at 16
in Roanoke, Va., and ran a riding academy for several years.
Seeking
a more laid-back lifestyle, she wrangled in Costa Rica and the
Dominican Republic before moving to Whitefish three years ago to guide
tourists during the summer around Glacier National Park and ski
through winter.
“It’s the country, the mountains and the idea of seeing lot of wildlife that appealed to me, ironically enough,” she said.
Bolster quickly racked bear experience, too, although until July 30, it was always at a distance.
“At
the peak of the season, we were seeing bears daily,” she said. “The
wranglers name them so we can let each other know where they are.
Usually the bears just keep feeding in the distance or they run away
when we come. Just seeing them is a treat for us and our guests.”
Because
they guide around Glacier Park, bear awareness is part of the
preparation wranglers get when hired by Swan Mountain Outfitters.
“We
go over a lot of wildlife scenarios in our training,” Bolster said. “We
learn to watch our horses for signals of possible trouble so we can
steer clear.”
That’s the key, she said: Avoid trouble with a moose or a bear.
“We
can’t use pepper spray when we’re riding because that could blind the
horse,” she said. “And using a gun would spook the horses and probably
produce more danger than safety.”
That’s how she
went to work that day: a young but seasoned pro rider on a new, huge and
spirited horse, unarmed in the wilderness with eight dudes.
“It
was a pleasant ride until we came around a corner on the trail and my
horse stopped firm and wouldn’t move,” Bolster said. “He never refuses
to go, so that caught my attention quick.”
But not fast enough to avoid the spike white-tailed deer that burst out of the brush and glanced off Tonk’s left front shoulder.
As
Tonk spun from the impact, Bolster saw a huge grizzly bear crashing
through the forest right at the group in pursuit of the deer. Horses
panicked and guests grabbed saddle horns for the ride of their lives.
“No amount of training could keep a horse from running from a 700-pound charging bear,” she said.
Seven of the horses sensed the danger, scrambled around and galloped back on the trail toward the barn.
But Scout bolted perpendicular to the trail into the timber packing the 8-year-old boy.
“The
deer peeled off and joined the horses sprinting down the trail,”
Bolster said. “So the bear just continued running right past me. I’m not
sure the bear even knew the roles had changed, but now it was chasing a
horse instead of a deer.”
The grizzly was zeroed in on Scout and the boy – the isolated prey in the woods.
Adding
to the drama, the boy’s father, an experienced rider, could not
convince his horse that it was a good plan to ride to his son’s rescue.
“The last thing he saw over his shoulder as his horse ran away was the grizzly chasing his boy,” Bolster said.
With
the bear on Scout’s heels, Tonk’s instinct was to flee with the group
of horses. But Tonk responded to Bolster’s heels in his ribs as she spun
the big fella around. They wheeled out of a 360 and bolted into the
trees to wedge between the predator and the prey.
“The boy was
bent over, feet out of the stirrups, clutching the saddle horn and the
horse’s neck,” she said. “That kept him from hitting a tree limb.
“But all I could think about was the boy falling off in the path of that grizzly.
“I bent down, screamed and yelled, but the bear was growling and snarling and staying very focused on Scout.
“As
it tried to circle back toward Scout, I realized I had to get Tonk to
square off and face the bear. We had to get the bear to acknowledge us.
“We did. We got its attention – and the bear charged.
“So I charged at the bear.”
Did she think twice about that?
“I
had no hesitation, honestly,” Bolster said. “Nothing in my body was
going to let that little boy get hurt by that bear. That wasn’t
an option.”
Tonk was on the same page.
With a ton of horse,
boulder-size hooves and a fire-breathing blonde thundering at it, the
bear came within about 10 feet before skittering off to the side.
But it quickly angled to make yet another stab at getting to Scout and the boy – who had just fallen to the ground.
“Tonk and I had to go at the bear a third time before we finally hazed him away,” she said.
“The boy had landed in some beargrass and was OK. Scout was standing nearby.”
Bolster gathered the boy up with her on Tonk, grabbed Scout’s lead and trotted down the trail.
“The
boy was in shock,” she said. “I looked back and could see the bear had
continued to go away through he woods, but I had another five or 10
minutes of riding before I got back with the group.”
Not until she
reunited with her riders – all OK and standing in various stages of
confusion with their horses – did she start to shake.
“I looked at Tonk, and he was wet with sweat and shaking, too,” she said.
She was especially concerned for the boy’s father, who probably suffered the most terror in the ordeal.
“He
was fine, and I got my biggest tip of the season,” Bolster said. “My
biggest hope is that the boy isn’t discouraged from riding. This was a
one-in-a-million event.”
For the next few days,
the outfitter shut down the trail rides and Bolster joined other
wranglers and a federal grizzly bear expert to ride horses through the
area looking for the bear.
“They tracked it for a long way and
concluded that it kept going out of the area,” she said. “Judging from
the tracks and my description of how high the bear came up on Tonk, the
grizzly expert estimated it weighed 700-750 pounds.
“This was a
case of us being in the wrong place as a bear was already in the act of
chasing its natural prey. He was probably more persistent because he was
really hungry.”
Bolster and the other wranglers vowed to have
bear spray on their belts to make sure they can defend their guests
during breaks on the ground.
“But when you’re riding, the horse is your best protection, if you can stay on,” she said.
“Some
of the horses I’ve ridden would have absolutely refused to do what Tonk
did; others would have thrown me off in the process. Some horses can
never overcome their flight-animal instinct to run away.”
In those minutes of crisis, the big lug of mongrel mount proved his mettle in a test few trail horses will face in their careers.
Tonk’s grit moved Bolster. She wasn’t about to send him back to Wyoming with the other leased horses.
“Two weeks ago, I closed the deal and bought him,” Bolster said as she was wrapping up her 2011 wrangling season.
“After what he did that day, he had to be mine.”
The structure called “Mudgee Permanent Camp” by its architect
is the epitome of rustic modern with a definitively Australian bent.
Located on a sheep station in central-west New South Wales, it sits atop
a hill that provides views for hundreds of miles in all directions,
either from the first floor with the copper sides propped open or from
the roof, which doubles as a rain collection device.
