Amanda Wylie is a city girl, born and raised in Queens, New York City, but even after a terrifying close encounter with a grizzly she still feels the call of the wild.
Wylie first fell in love with vast, remote country during a visit to Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park. That put her on a path toward attempting a solo hike of the Continental Divide Trail this summer.
After an arms-length run-in with a grizzly in Montana, and then discovering the hard way that she’s allergic to black flies, Wylie had to call it quits.
But she wants to come back and try again.
“I’ve hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, and I’m going to complete the Continental Divide Trail,” she told Cowboy State Daily.
Inspired By Wyoming
About a decade ago, Wylie was going through some struggles and needed to find a new direction.
“Regular society, as we know it in the city, it wasn’t working for me,” she said.
In 2015, she came out to Yellowstone with a friend and did mostly “touristy things” in and around the park. But that was enough to spark a new fire in her.
“It was amazing. Yellowstone is so gorgeous, I don’t even have words for it,” Wyile said. “Ever since Yellowstone, ever since seeing Glacier (National Park) for the first time, I’ve been craving the wilderness for years.”
So, she got outside as much as she could, starting out by “car camping.”
It was a great way to get her feet wet exploring the West. But camping out of a vehicle still left her feeling a “disconnect” from the wild.
So she took the next step into tent camping and backpacking, the finally solo “through hiking” on America’s iconic long-distance trails.
Through hiking is a fantastic way to learn about the wilderness and the plants and animals that live there, she said.
“It’s not the same as learning about it in Earth science class in school, learning about it from a book. I’m the sort of person who likes to learn about things by experiencing them,” Wylie said.
Amanda Wylie of Queens, New York, fell in love with the West after a trip to Yellowstone years ago. This year, she had a terrifying close encounter with a grizzly in Montana’s Glacier National Park, but said she still wants to keep hiking out West. (Courtesy Amanda Wylie) 
Hiker Amanda Wylie of Queens, New York found these grizzly tracks in Glacier National Park just before having an arm’s-length encounter with the bear. (Courtesy Amanda Wylie) 
Amanda Wylie of Queens, New York, fell in love with the West after a trip to Yellowstone years ago. This year, she had a terrifying close encounter with a grizzly in Montana’s Glacier National Park, but said she still wants to keep hiking out West. (Courtesy Amanda Wylie) 
Amanda Wylie of Queens, New York, fell in love with the West after a trip to Yellowstone years ago. This year, she had a terrifying close encounter with a grizzly in Montana’s Glacier National Park, but said she still wants to keep hiking out West. (Courtesy Amanda Wylie) 
Amanda Wylie of Queens, New York, fell in love with the West after a trip to Yellowstone years ago. This year, she had a terrifying close encounter with a grizzly in Montana’s Glacier National Park, but said she still wants to keep hiking out West. (Courtesy Amanda Wylie)
Looking Forward To Seeing A Griz
During her outdoor adventures, Wylie had encountered all sorts of critters, large and small.
Until this summer, however, she’d yet to see a grizzly bear.
When she started hiking the Continental Divide Trail in June, she knew that a grizzly encounter was practically inevitable.
She was eager to see one of the big bears for the first time, then ended up getting more than she bargained for.
She started in Canada toward the end of June. Her route took her across the U.S.-Canada border and into Glacier National Park in Montana.
To get a backcountry hiking permit for Glacier, she had to go through a grizzly encounter training course — and is really glad she did.
She also keeps a can of bear spray handy in holster on one of her backpack’s front straps.
A Whopper Of A First Encounter
On July 4, about 75 miles into her journey, Wylie was enjoying some astonishing views as she hiked through a high-altitude zone. The trail passed through thick brush and scattered trees.
She’d seen some grizzly tracks, and some of them looked fresh. Then she saw some bear droppings and an area where a bear had apparently been digging up roots.
That’s when Wylie went on high alert, noticing that things had gone quiet. The birds weren’t chirping and squirrels weren’t chattering. That was a good sign something big and mean was nearby.
Then she saw a rodent “jump across the trail in front of me like he was afraid for his life” and looked to her right.
“I turned to my right, and within arm’s length there was this grizzly. It was standing up, and it was huge,” she said.
Her instincts were telling her to run. Indeed, she even turned her body to start fleeing in the opposite direction.
Then Wylie remembered the training. Running from a grizzly is a terrible idea that would just trigger the bear’s predatory instincts.
She also remembered that trying to “out-alpha” or intimidate a grizzly is also a terrible idea.
She crouched down a bit and started backing away, speaking to the bear in a calm voice, letting it know she wasn’t a threat.
“I was saying, ‘No, no. I’m not here to hurt you,’” she said. “I didn’t look it in the eye. Nobody should be that close to a grizzly.”
She pulled her bear spray from its holster and with her finger on the spray’s trigger, she set her smartphone on top of the can to steady it as she held it with her other hand.
‘Am I Going To Make It To 31?’
She started to take video as the bear, now on all fours, began walking after her down the trail.
“I knew that at any moment this could have turned fatal. That’s one of the reasons I started recording,” Wylie said. “Somebody would probably find my phone and my body, and there would be proof of the incident that ended my life, if it came to that.”
The other thoughts racing through her head involved her father, a firefighter, who died when she was only about a year old.
“He died at age 30 in the line of duty as a firefighter. My birthday is July 5, and I was turning 31,” Wylie said.
“I had been thinking, ‘Wow, I’m really going to outlive my dad, starting tomorrow.’ And then I was in this situation with this bear, and I was thinking, ‘Wow, am I going to make it to 31?’” she said.
Another Encounter A Few Miles Later
At last the bear turned away and went off the trail. When she saw it shake its body, like a dog trying to dry off, she took that as a sign that the grizzly was starting to relax.
The bear wandered off, disappearing into the cover.
“I was so relieved. Once I was sure the bear was gone, I started hiking again,” Wylie said.
She figured it was likely a young male grizzly, perhaps a “teenager bear.”
“I think if it had been an older male grizzly, it would have been less curious and more territorial,” she said.
A few miles further down the trail, she spotted more grizzlies, this time a mother and a cub.
They were at a comfortable distance, so she kept hiking as the cub scrambled up a tree.
“The mother bear looked at me from around the tree. They were far enough away that it wasn’t an issue, and she just seemed curious,” Wylie said.
‘I Did Go And Do The Things I Wanted To Do’
Not long after her day with the bears, Wylie was swarmed by black flies and had an unexpected allergic reaction to them.
So she waited until nightfall “when the flies were no longer active,” and hiked out toward the nearest road.
She ended up in Browning, Montana, where she got medical attention and had to cancel the rest of her hike.
She wants to come back as soon as possible and give the Continental Divide Trail another try. And she’s eager to see the Wyoming portion of it.
Wylie said her friends and family in the city have a hard time grasping why she loves going into the wild alone, and they worry about her.
But the backcountry is where she wants to be.
“I did go and do that things I wanted to do, despite other people’s fears for me,” she said.
Her experience with the first grizzly affirmed that she wants to keep hiking alone — unless she can find a fellow hiker who she knows can keep their cool around a bear, the way she did.
“I know what people say about hiking alone. But personally, I don’t know anyone who I trust enough to hike with me.” Wylie said.
“I know that I trust myself and my instincts enough to know that I was going to be able to handle whatever came my way,” she added. “But I don’t know the other hiker’s risk assessment abilities.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
