As the bear family approached, a silence fell over the land, and I swear I heard the sound of falling snow. That was when my auto focus stopped working and I had to switch to manual mode. The snow was too much. The bears didn't seem to mind. They just kept coming along the shoreline.

They were on the scent of something, usually staring at the ground. Sometimes they would stop for a drink of water from the lake.

The grizzly cubs were huge! They seemed to be larger than many black bears I photographed in the preceding days. They were certainly not something I would want to tangle with. I could hear their long claws clacking along the rocky shoreline.

In this image, the second cub is staring right at me, and it doesn't look like he/she is all that thrilled. Mother grizzly presses on despite my presence.

This time all three of them take a look; the fourth bear trailing and out of the frame. The snow kept falling and the world was so quiet except for this family of bears.

Eventually the bears had to move on, and as they did, they disappeared into the blizzard.

This really was the best wildlife moment I've ever had in Glacier(and anywhere else). Being so close to these magnificent grizzly bears is something neither the photos nor
I can explain properly. The wild majesty of Glacier, the bear family and the thick snow created one of the most surreal moments I've had in the outdoors. I hope this bear family is still out there somewhere, alive and healthy. I hope someone else has the pleasure of seeing these truly rare animals as I did.

The last photo in this series is of Lake Sherburne after the grizzly family encounter. If you look in the upper left, you can see a bald eagle in the air. Earlier that morning elk were standing in the water on the far side of the lake while others bugled from the forested slope. That's just how Glacier is.