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As a tourism guide and naturalist, I’m often asked for suggestions on how to see bears. Millions of visitors come to the mountains every year, and they all want to see bears. Bears don’t take this into consideration when they plan their regular forays but, with a little knowledge of their habits and habitats, you can enjoy these animals from the safety of your vehicles, while minimizing unwanted encounters on the trail.

Finding most animals requires an understanding their habits and dietary requirements. Since bears spend much of their life sleeping away winter in their dens, they have only one main focus when they are active—building up sufficient fat layers for next winters siesta. Unlike ground squirrels, which are true hibernators, bears merely go into a heavy sleep in the winter. This means that their metabolism, heart rate and respiration drop only slightly below what would be normal for such large animals. The end result is that they require almost as much food energy each day they spend in their den as if they were actively moving around.

Foods selected by bears must have two characteristics. They must be highly nutritious and easily digested. During the annual cycle of life in the mountains, bears move with the availability of their primary foods. When grizzlies wake in the spring, they head to the avalanche slopes, make their way to the frozen food section and get themselves a TV Dinner. Over the course of the winter, the odd bighorn sheep, the odd mountain goat, and even the odd mountain climber falls victim to winter avalanches. These nicely preserved morsels give them the protein boost they need after their winter sleep. South-facing avalanche slopes are also one of the first areas to green-up in the spring, and so are attractive to bears. 

Many bears continue to lose weight throughout the summer, even though they are up and actively feeding. 

Spring foods also include last years berries for instance bearberry, green vegetation, flowers, insects, animals, and garbage. Oh yes, and don't forget to take down your bird feeder in the spring! Their diet is primarily composed of plants, and they actively hunt for the succulent new spring growth. Plants like the glacier lily and many members of the Pea Family sprout, the bear will quickly find them. The early stages of these plants are more nutritious, higher in protein, and more easily digested than the latter stages after they flower, and so bears will actively seek out younger groupings of plants.

Surprisingly, at high elevation, plants grow much faster and this provides a situation in which there is a greater amount of protein in the plants when compared to lower elevations. As a result, both black bears and grizzlies prefer to feet higher up the slopes.

In spring, when the high country is still snowbound, the bears are forced into the valleys which contain both roads and man. As a result, we tend to see more bears, particularly grizzly bears, during the spring months before they retreat uphill with the receding snowline. An early drive up the Icefields Parkway at this time is often rewarded with the sighting of at least one bear—perhaps even a grizzly.

As the season continues, the south-facing avalanche slopes and meadows begin to dry out, and their value as a feeding location diminishes. The bears look for moist areas where plants may still be in their early development stages. Moving from south to north facing slopes can delay green-up by a month or two, so the bears follow the green-up with an uncanny sense of where the most food will be located. During this time, there is a greater potential for conflict with hikers and other outdoorspeople. During this brief period, the berries have not ripened, and their early season foods have disappeared. On the other hand, these mid-season locations represent some of our most popular alpine meadows. Deep, north facing, avalanche slopes will have a very late melt and a subsequently late green-up. Of particular value, the Cow Parsnip (Heracleum lanatum) provides nutritious stems and occassionally leaf-stalks and flowers (rarely leaves). At lower elevations, black bears may feast on dandelions. Occassionally, roots of plants like the Hedysarum are critical. 

Insects add to the diet. Where ever, how ever they can get them. Ants, beetles, bees, and anything else with six, eight or more legs. Since insects are prevalent in recent fire sites, caution is advised in these areas. 

Mammals, like ground squirrels and taken when available. Bears eat more than 80% plant matter, and animals are an opportunistic event. As the calving season begins for ungulates, black and grizzly bears are quick to arrive on the scene. In some areas, grizzlies can take up to 50% of newborn elk and 42% of moose calves. The calves quickly mature though and can elude bears by a few days of age. For the rest of the season, only visibly sick or injured animals stimulate the predatory attention of bears. Animals that have died by other means, either predatory or otherwise, are also attractive. Carrion forms a critical part of the bear's diet. 

What about fish? Most people assume that grizzlies feed on salmon. Unfortunately for bears in the Rockies, there ain't no salmon here. They must rely on other sources of food.