It was halfway through a week-long camping trip to the Castle Wilderness area...up until now Leslie and I had seen numerous black bears both driving...and hiking... The area is amazing to visit; hiking, fishing, camping are all in abundance. The weather was great, warm during the day, clear skies at night with so, so, many stars! Living in the city it’s sometimes easy to forget how many stars there are, how much wildlife there is, how quiet the forest is, and the smell of skunk cabbage and fall. Radiant heat piercing through the undertone of cool air. 

With Waterton National Park close by we decided to go hiking to Lower and Upper Rowe Lakes. Smooth driving, we arrived at the parking lot, along with several other groups...some larger, some twosomes like us. The trail was pungent with the smells of fall, but travel was easy and berries abounded. First stop was Lower Rowe Lake, small and refreshing where we rested for a short bit before moving along the trail to Upper Rowe Lake. A kilometer further along we came to a beautiful meadow, Lineham Ridge framed our view. With a sense of the final push to Upper Rowe Lake we steadily moved up the hill side when Leslie abruptly turned around, faced me, and simply said Bear!  I looked forward, and sure enough, traversing across the vast slope was a large black bear. It was moving at a determined pace and there was no decision to make...we’re heading down, Now! Back at the meadow 3 ladies came up to us and started towards the trail we had just retreated. There is a large bear up there we said...Oh, maybe as a bigger group we can together get to the lake safely they pleaded...so...up we went...together as a group. Hooting and hollering and yes yodeling we quickly moved up the trail we had recently come down. With an eye on the trail, above and below it, and my hand on the bear spray, we were soon looking at the backside of the bear we had seen earlier. It was moving forward very slowly, eating berries along the way, not paying much attention to the loud party behind it. It would move a couple of feet forward, and so would we. This was how it went for the next ten minutes...until finally Leslie said the obvious...we are irritating it and should go down. No, the others who had joined us said, we don’t want to go down. We’re so close to the lake now!! After some convincing we all went back down to the meadow together. Lunch was shared in the warm fall sun. Relaxing, Leslie commented that what we had been doing was harassing this bear, pushing it to move aside so that we could get to our destination. How selfish, and perhaps dangerous we had been. If Leslie and I had not met more hikers we surely would not have gone up. This is the danger that we don’t discuss enough but is often a critical factor in making poor decisions outdoors.  The psychology of groupthink! By definition “Groupthink” is a psychological and sociological phenomenon in which members of a group will conform to the majority opinion to maintain group harmony rather than stating their own opinions. Groupthink is differentiated from simple group consensus by its often illogical or poorly thought through conclusions. That was us, going up behind a bear, doing what bears do, eating and fattening up for the winter which is totally rational. What we were doing was groupthink irrational... How entitled we feel we are when in the outdoors. I am thankful that we finally made the right decision but embarrassed it took us so long. The lesson, be wary of groupthink, and tough as it is, Speak Up! Don’t let others define you, define yourself!