Ursus Horribilis

Bear Encounters of Every Kind

By Kirk Siegler, 9-29-05

From Carole Lowe:

Seems to me that I have too many bear stories and also that they get progressively more frightening. They started when I was a kid visiting Yellowstone with my family in the 50’s. That was when the Yellowstone bears were feeding out of the open dumps and somewhat habituated to humans and, it seems, us to them. My siblings and I would have contests to see who could see the most bears and when we did see them, we’d play chicken, and leave tidbits for them to eat and dare each other to get close. It wasn’t uncommon to find a bear in the garbage cans at the Old Faithful cabins or watch with horrified delight from inside of the car as a very bold one climbed up onto the hood and peered in.

Later in life, I moved to the Tetons and had to become bear aware, leaving clean camps, hanging food and never walking around blind corners in the trail without making noise. Also, I always had my dog. I saw lots of bears during my years as a wilderness ranger and had many benign encounters, but was truly humbled once. I had seriously studied grizzly bears, really wanting to be able to identify one if I should see it in the wild. My grizzled old friend, Bud Baler, a horse packer for the forest service and native of Teton Valley always said, “Don’t worry, Carole, you’ll know one if you see one. They don’t look like any bear you’ve seen yet.�

So one day I was on patrol in the north end of the range - walking the Bear Trail (its true name) from Badger Creek to Bitch Creek. I knew of a great huckleberry patch just on the far side of Indian Meadows and decided to make a short detour off the trail for a little snack. A few moments later I was locking eyes with a MAJOR BEAR! The whole experience was very calm and quiet - or would have appeared so to a witness, but I was raging inside, my heart racing about 10 times its normal rate. I quickly averted my eyes and began backing up slowly - just like you’re supposed to - and when I was out of sight turned and ran like hell. When I felt safely out of danger, I stopped to let my heart slow down and think over what I had just encountered. It was then I knew that I had just come face to face with a grizzly bear in a huckleberry patch. Holy Shit!! Huge bear with a hump, silvery tips over an otherwise cinnamon colored coat, big round head, and little upright round ears and a dished out nose. I was so excited that I immediately wanted to circle around and sneak up on it for a better look, but I had my puppy, Lupine, who hadn’t seen the bear because of the thick underbrush, and if she had, would probably have upset it causing real trouble for me.

This would be the first time she probably saved my life.

All of my memorable bear encounters have taught me a lesson and could have been avoided if I had been more careful. I became more sensitive when I made my home in bear habitat, Fox Creek Canyon. Glenn and I bought the old canyon homestead with remnants of an orchard. We worked hard to revitalize the old apple trees and were growing a pretty good crop when we discovered, one lovely autumn morning, that our trees had been ravaged. Large limbs, once heavy with the ripening apples were lying on the ground (sans apples) amidst piles of bear scat! The cover to the hot tub under the trees had been caved in by something very large standing on top of it to pick apples.

Okay, so now I knew that I had to “bear proof� my home in the fall, just after the first cold spell, for that’s when the foraging bears would come out of the mountains looking to fatten up before their hibernation. The next year as soon as I saw the first signs of bear - which I was diligently looking for - I picked the apples, every single one in a very long day and wearily fell into bed. That night there was a bear rage on Fox Creek. In my weariness I had forgotten to put the full baskets of apples inside, but that’s not all - our neighbor, Bill Boney, who was a pasta maker, had come home very late that night with a car full of pasta to sell the next day. Because the pasta needed to cool, Bill left the car windows open. Ha! The next morning, on the path through the forest between our houses we found huge steaming piles of pink bear shit. We had lots of laughs about the overstuffed bears thanking us politely for the feast and the hot tub soak! “Have any cigars? Hic!�

Now the stories get scarier. October, 1998, on a very dark and.....I wish it had been stormy because then maybe I would have SHUT THE DOOR! But it had been a very warm day, a last opportunity to open all the doors and windows for a good airing and I mistakenly left one door open when we walked to Rob and Kate’s for dinner. Coming home, laughing and stumbling through the dark, thick woods in a lovely wine haze, I noticed that Ruff and Lupine were acting very nervous, running back and forth and whining. I thought they were just hungry and hurried in to feed them.....and..... there was Pooh innocently and happily ripping open cocoa packets from the camping food box for dessert after a satisfying meal of dog food. I slammed the door and screamed - just like a hysterical girl - “There’s a bear in the house!!!� Glenn came running in, stood in front of the door that I had just slammed, got all puffed up and flung it open commanding, “All bears out!� The bear left. And we were left rolling on the ground in relieved laughter. But it was a little too close for comfort.

I hope this is the last story, because it is definitely the scariest. July, 2000. I had a few hours free in the middle of the day and thought I would run up to Huckleberry Lake for a swim with the dogs. Huckleberry Lake is a little known place that can be reached by an obscure trail only kept open by game and locals who know about it. It has always been one of my “power spots� - a place where I can go to find peace and strength and I’ve spent many hours there. That day I was moving fast, preoccupied with my troubles and had fallen into a deep trail trance. I noticed a disgusting rotting animal smell, even said a “whew� to the dogs, but the red flags that should have gone up had I been more “there,� were still. I walked right into a bear on a carcass. It stood up looming hugely above me, growled and I bolted. After a few seconds of mindless, scared-out -of-my-skull fleeing, I turned to see that it was chasing me and pretty damn close. Just as I started to hear voices in my head saying, “You can’t do this, don’t run....,� I heard the dogs go ballistic. My brave fuzzy buddies had gone into fight mode as I was in flight mode and were between me and the bear. I stopped running, turned and the bear backed off.

I moved quietly down to a spring where I felt momentarily safe and collapsed in a heap. After I had given the dogs my sandwich and many grateful hugs and gulped down water, I thought back through the encounter, trying to remember every detail. Honestly, to have gotten a positive identification of the bear I would have needed eyes in the back of my head (now I know where that expression came from), but here’s what I remember: very beautiful deep rich brown color, very big, maybe 7 feet tall standing up, big round head, very mad and - I’m almost positive I saw it - a ruffled hump behind it’s head! Sweet Jesus! What’s your worst nightmare? BEING CHASED BY A GRIZZLY BEAR!!!

After, on the hike home, I laughed out loud at the vision of myself as a cartoon character, eyes popping out from their sockets, mouth open with tongue trying to escape and little legs in a futile spin.

The next morning, I woke up feeling joy, something that I hadn’t felt for a long time. Seems that compared to being eaten by a grizzly bear even a root canal - or a broken heart - is no biggie. Yesterday, on the drive home from the bear encounter, I heard a story on NPR on the proposed reintroduction of grizzlies into the Selway/Bitterroot Wilderness in central Idaho. My immediate reaction was to yell, “No way!� But this morning I’m seeing life differently. I had an elemental experience, perhaps one that my pioneer grandmother or a more ancient ancestor may have had and that unexpected link to my history has given me the strength I was looking for. The bear was just being himself and I was just being myself and we’re all still alive and what joy there is in that!

This story is dedicated to Billy D., a buddy who died this summer during an encounter with a nasty rock in his kayak on the Teton River. In the midst of my panic a small little girl voice said, “I’m there Billy, beam me up!� I’m not making that up, it really happened.

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