RUNNING BEAR, a memoir

A true story about encounters with bears.

 I heard a shrill scream echo across the lake. It had been a quiet, windless night in the high mountains of the Sierra Nevada, in California. I was still recovering from my run-in with a bear, and I felt a bit shaky as I stared into the moonless night, thinking about Jan, a friend from high school.

 

After high school, Jan became a geologist and got a job with the Geological Survey, whose mission was to map out the entire mineral wealth of our nation. She was doing her work in the wilds of Alaska, which had its benefits as well as its dangers. A helicopter had dropped her off in an extremely isolated spot, heavily wooded with a small meadow where the chopper landed. To this day, I have a hard time understanding why they would leave a young woman, or anyone for that matter, alone, armed only with a radio in the wilds of Alaska.

 

As the helicopter was leaving it created a tremendous noise, which spooked a grizzly bear that was concealed in the thick underbrush. The bear charged Jan, dragging and throwing her around, his jaws latched to her arm. She was conscious for the entire ordeal. Her only hope was to get to the radio on her belt and call for help. The strategy was to pretend to be dead in hopes the bear would abandon its vicious attack. It worked owing to the fact it was the right thing to do in that situation, and also, the bear had torn her right arm entirely off and was gnawing on his prize while strolling around. (Remember this actually happened.)

 

Jan, of course, was bleeding profusely, and was in imminent danger of bleeding out, and she knew it. What was truly incredible was Jan's ability not to panic, and focus on what needed to be done for her to survive. She managed to a call the helicopter, which quickly turned back to attempt a rescue. Regrettably, the sound of the returning helicopter enraged the bear once again. The bear, a ball of hair, muscle and teeth, furiously and immediately attacked her again. This time, it grabbed her remaining arm and severely damaged it. (Later the arm was amputated.) The landing helicopter drove the bear back into the woods, and the beast was never seen again. 

 

By this time Jan was a bleeding mess, and deeply in shock. They rushed her to the nearest medical help, and that saved her life. She was a strong, resilient woman and was able to recover physically and mentally from the horrendous experience, minus two arms. So as I sat by the lakeshore, this was the memory I was ruminating on.

 

I was deep into black bear country and frankly scared. If a bear truly wanted someone dead, there was little you could do about it. Earlier that night, I had been sleeping with my backpack by my head, and my food hanging off the high branch of a tree, hopefully, out of bear range. I knew what I was doing, but that was no guarantee that I wouldn’t have problems. This was the bear’s backyard, not mine, so he was holding all the cards, in a metaphorical sense of course. 

 

Something had stirred me in my sleep and caused me to look up. I could see a large black silhouette contrasted against the deep indigo sky, and yes it was a bear, two feet from my head! I did what I was supposed to do; I would have done it even if it were the wrong thing to do, I screamed. It had the desired effect, and the bear turned and sped into the woods. I could hear its feet thumping against the hard ground as it ran.

 

Due to the adrenaline that was madly surging through my veins, sleeping was out of the question. I got the embers of the fire going, and sat by it carving, trying to make a stick into a snake, waiting for dawn. That’s when I heard the scream. The source seemed to be just feet away. Thankfully, there was a large body of water between me and whatever was causing someone to scream. “Oh god,” I was hoping that whoever it was fared as well as me. Again my present situation brought to mind another incident that had happened in these very mountains.

 

I didn’t know the girl, but she attended the same college as me in California. Apparently, she was an avid outdoor person and loved backpacking. Years later, I became friends with her father because we both taught in the same school. It was absolutely shocking what happened, and the experience totally devastated her family. She had been attacked by a black bear, and the only trace they ever found of her was one ear.

 

Bringing up these stories from the past was doing little to calm my nerves. I blame it on my brain. My brain was going through my files seeing what he could dig up to torment me with. At this point, my goal was to get out of this granite basin and camp at a higher altitude, where it was less likely to run into a bear. I decided to leave by way of first circumnavigating the lake. I wanted to see what kind of damage the bear managed to dream up over there and if the screamer was still in one piece.

 

As it turned out there was only two of us camped on the lake. The other individual was new to the outdoor life and made the serious mistake of leaving food in his tent.

 

To give you an idea of a bear’s insatiable appetite for food, and what he will do to get it, I will tell you another quick bear story. We were rafting on the Rogue River in Oregon. At night, we would put our food in a raft and then leave it in the rapids tied to a rope with one of us sleeping on the raft. One morning, we discovered that a bear had pulled the raft into shore using the rope. Next, not bothering to use the lid, the bear tore the side off a metal cooler and devoured the food within. You might ask yourself, “what about the guy that was sleeping on the raft?” We all pondered the same question, including the fellow that slept on the raft. That night we had consumed a lot of alcohol and dare I say marijuana. So the only conclusion we could come up with was, he was not sleeping on the raft he was passed out on the raft.

 

So getting back to the moron with the food in his tent. If a bear can pull off a stunt like the one did on the Rogue River, breaking into a nylon tent was child’s play. Not bothering to use the door, the bear simply unzipped the tent with a claw and helped himself. Of course, he had to endure the screams of the occupant, but that was a small price to pay for some M&M’s and jerky.

I helped this fellow get his gear together and then gave him some food. He had not even put the rest of the food up a tree. The bear had a real banquet that night. The problem was that people like him are teaching the bears that if they want food just look for people and campsites, instant grocery store. Sadly, when these bears become too much of a nuisance, they are trapped and moved, or sometimes killed.

 

Finally, I got the amateur camper going and headed in the right direction to his car. After that, I hoped he could make it to San Francisco on his own; he was still pretty shaken up. I did make it to higher ground that night and had no more troubles with bears. The moral to the story: if you are attempting something new, get some idea of what you need to know before you do it. Not knowing could get you killed.

Reviews

[emmajoy]

This got me from start to finish .. bears .. hmmm we don't exactly have those in Dorset!

What a terrible tale about your friend, Jan, what excrutiating pain she must have gone through tho maybe, maybe too shocked to feel. What on earth became of her?

The rest of your post goes from one experience to another, flows like a dream, I even laughed at the happy raft-sleeper dead to the world so to speak.

What you say about human creating an instant grocery store seems so obvious!
Surely people who go into the wild have more respect for wild creatures' instincts, habits and environment.

Great post, thanks for sharing.

(tyvm for your review)