Hey Bear! - Part 1 of 3
Random Encounters with Ursus Unexpecticus
As a fairly devout hiker-dude since my twenties, I’ve enjoyed my share of bear encounters over the years. Some, I think, were rather entertaining and worth sharing. No blood spilled, limbs still intact, a few scares, but nothing too harrowing. I do, however, get to count myself among the lucky few to have possibly run into a grizzly in the North Cascades. Two actually, probably siblings, at close range. Am I certain they were grizz? Absolutely-probably. Sort of. We’ll get to that.
But let’s start at the beginning . . .
Based on an intensive investigation of the available evidence, in this case an old photo of Mom’s, I believe my first encounter with a real-live bear was right around the ripe old age of two and half. In fact, it would have absolutely-probably occurred in late July, 1955. That would be shortly after my glamorous, 27-year-old kid-toting mother remarried, and the whole family went on a trip. That’s her in white in the photo below, asking the supreme existential question, Why are we here?
When I zoom in on the photo, I can see that both she and my new dad (Bud) are smiling at the bear, although she does look a little scrunched back in the seat of our 1950-something Henry J Coupe. In case it isn’t obvious, we’re at Yellowstone National Park. In the 1950s, Yellowstone was America’s number-one destination for habituating bears to people food. I’m sure we did our best to help out.
Since you don’t see me in the car, I’d like to take credit for taking this rare photo of a shiny, deep-blue Henry J classic. But methinks I was more likely in the car ahead hiding under a blanket, while my grandma or grandpa clicked the shutter of someone’s Kodak Brownie.
I once thought my earliest memory of anything at all was at the more mature and somewhat potty-trained age of three. My sharpest memory is one of my new dad frying eggs, potatoes and fresh-caught trout over a Coleman stove at a Yellowstone campground. I can still smell that buttery, sizzling, delicious trout.
I vaguely recall seeing a bear next to the road. Or perhaps I only saw a picture of a bear next to the road and remember that instead? In any event, as Kris and I looked through these old photos, she did the math. At Yellowstone, I would have been just shy of two and a half. Cool!
I’ve been back to Yellowstone a number of times since, and don’t think there’s been a time when I did not see a bear. Though never that close. Six decades after my first visit, my more immediate family enjoyed a reunion campout at Grand Teton National Park. We spent a day sightseeing in Yellowstone and saw a couple of bears feeding on the slope above the road. We did not see them begging at car windows, however, which I think is a good thing. Our old bad habits probably just gave them indigestion anyway.
We also saw bison, and these guys were definitely on the side of the road. And in the middle of the road. A couple of big ones seemed to be bickering at each other in front of my sister’s car. We weren’t quite sure what the spat was about, but they obviously weren’t interested in us or our camp coolers, even if they looked burly enough to eat the whole car.
While camped at Teton, I just had to get a solo hike in early one morning, while the 30-some-odd kids in the family were still out cold in their tents with marshmallow hangovers. I aimed for something quick and easy, a four-mile loop hike to Taggart Lake.
As usual, trailhead signs warned of bears and were pretty insistent that hikers should carry bear spray. I wasn’t going to spend the fifty dollars for that, so I’d just do the tried-and-true thing of making noise with my trekking poles so as not to surprise anyone, like, say, a sow with cubs. I don’t necessarily recommend that approach—supposedly, two people talking is better than one person clacking—but I was willing to go with the odds for a 90-minute hike. I should learn to talk to myself more.
Okay, so I did not see any bears on this particular hike, nor was an encounter all that likely. I passed only two other hikers who were resting at the lake. I noticed they carried bear spray. As I continued on, poles a-clacking, I nevertheless got that kinda humbling sense of being isolated and vulnerable. Wyoming has grizzlies. Admittedly, I picked up the pace.
The warning signs and the experience got me thinking that maybe bear spray isn’t such a bad idea. I’ve never carried the stuff, but perhaps I should? Not just for the enhanced odds of fending off an overly curious or protective bear, grizzlies (or browns) in particular, but also to make a point to said bear (if given the chance) that humans are no fun to tangle with. A once-sprayed mama bear might teach her babes to stay well away from those lanky, funny-looking critters wobbling around on two legs. We can hope, at least.
Not quite twenty years ago, I was working on an update to one of my hiking guides, hustling to complete a 40-mile, two-day hike near Glacier Peak, northeast of Seattle. I was almost trotting the last mile in advancing darkness, trying to get out of the woods while I could still make out the trail. I had a headlamp, but was too lazy to stop and dig it out of my pack.
Suddenly, a woof and a large mass of fur lurched from the brush in front of me. I nearly stumbled over my own momentum. The bear was not much more than an arm’s-length away. Within a split second, s/he went flying up the trail I’d just come down. S/he chose well, though in the dark it seemed as if we’d almost bumped shoulders. I trotted forty yards more and dug out the headlamp.
I recall being out in the woods with a cohort in the ‘90s, backpacking into a remote site where we were tasked with conducting a brief vegetation survey for the U.S. Forest Service. As we rounded a bend in an overgrown logging road near the survey site, we spotted a sow and two cute cubs browsing about 75 yards ahead of us. How sweet.
One of the cubs looked at us, then the other, before mama bear looked our way too and realized something was up. She stood on her hind legs and appeared to squint and sniff in our direction. Then she slowly began walking toward us. Hmmm, wrong response, I thought. You’re suppose to go the other way.
We moved around, turning one way and the other to show off our backpacks. Don’t even think about it mama. We got some mean backpacks. The fabric will get stuck in your teeth. We tried to look big and not worth messing with. It worked. She dropped to all fours and ran down the old road and into the forest, with her cubbies madly scurrying behind.
On a day hike and summit scramble with another friend years ago, we entered an unlogged area that was staked out for a timber sale. My friend was none too happy about that and went about locating the survey stakes. I continued up the lightly used trail.
As I approached a low saddle on the ridge at an opening of subalpine meadow, I noticed a breeze in my face and abundant blueberries low to the ground. I had this strange sense that I was about to encounter a bear. I slowed for the final few steps to the saddle. Sure enough, there was the rear end of a monster black bear gorging on berries, oblivious to my arrival. I stepped behind a tree to watch her/him and wondered if maybe I’d tapped into some primeval sense of awareness (or picked up a scent?) and reacted instinctively to the unseen presence of a potential danger, the bear.
My friend soon caught up with me and I motioned toward the animal, a stone’s throw away. We watched the big guy enjoying the edibles and whispered our thoughts, wondering when s/he might notice us. After fifteen or so minutes of watching, we grew impatient. We still had a peak to climb. My friend picked up a twig and snapped it. The bear quickly turned to see us and immediately went into a high-speed gallop down through the meadow and out of sight. Good choice, bear.
I might boast about seeing so many bears out in the hills, but I gotta wonder if more of them have laid eyes on me than vice-versa?
The story continues . . . PART 2