My off-shift was coming to a close and I had done little else besides find different places to sit on my butt and do nothing. Although I generally felt pretty good about this, the inevitable, “What did you do this off-shift?” questions were looming, and so I resolved to actually go and do at least one thing.
The thing I chose was a short hike near where I had been camping (read: lounging).
It started at Oowah Lake and continued up the hill for a couple of miles to another lake. I made it to the second lake without seeing a single other person or animal. I was tempted to see this as ominous, but I resolved not to, under the presumption that if I was going to be frightened of seeing things as well as seeing literally nothing then I was in some serious trouble.
On the way back to Oowah Lake I was singing aloud. I do this sometimes when hiking alone, I feel it gives the impression to any lingering serial killers or other predators that I am crazy and therefore not to be messed with, also its kinda fun.
I had just finished off “There’s a Hole in My Bucket” and was trying to think of another one when I heard it. Something was crashing through the brush off the trail to my right. I couldn’t yet see it but from the noise it was making I knew it was too big to be a bird or a squirrel. It came careening through a bush maybe 30ft away and for a second we both stopped dead, surprised, to look at each other. A bear cub.
“OH SHIT!”, I screamed in its tiny, adorable face. And then I ran.
Now, you are not supposed to run from bears. I know this, I teach this to my students. You are supposed to stand still, look as big as possible, make lots of noise, and take out your bear spray (which you totally have with you).
But I did not feel big, I did not have bear spray, and I certainly did not feel like standing still. And really, there were no thoughts in my head at all, just a primal desire to be somewhere different, very quickly.
I looked over my shoulder as I ran and saw a second cub slightly farther off the trail, and farther back still I glimpsed the immense shape of a mama bear looking casually over her shoulder. I ran like I have never run before. If there happens to be a very specific record for that small patch of trail I wholeheartedly believe I own it.
I was mostly lucky in that I was running over flat or downhill terrain and I wasn’t all that far from the trail head at this point. However there was one obstacle in my path; it was a cattle fence, designed in a zigzag pattern to allow hikers through but bamboozle the cows. As I approached it at high speed I mentally calculated my ability to leap over it, and found myself wanting; so I was forced to dash madly back and forth feeling like a person forced into a square dance while trying to get the last life boat off of the Titanic.
Moments later I burst triumphantly onto the trail head, managed to gasp to a passing family that there were bears up there, and returned to the safety of my truck.
Later I had some time to think to myself, what would have happened if I had been killed by a bear? Presumably some people would say, “What an idiot” while others might be kinder and say, “Well at least she was out doing something, I’d rather die like that then sit inside for the rest of my life”, funnily enough, I think I agree with both.
Wander and Waver 