Bear Baiting

Hibernating bears generally don’t sleep on logs.  Not the hibernating bears I’ve known anyways.  They sleep in caves.  That’s the way I always imagined it and the way it is.  But this bear slept on top of a log, belly in sky, short bear arms folded across stomach with chest raising up and down like a cartoonish sleeping drunk.  He was not sleeping though, no question about that.  He was hibernating.  On top of the log, like a drunk, in a cartoon.  The discrepancy in color from his snout to his fur was drastic, it must have been disconcerting for him. 

 I didn’t want to disturb him.  He was big, black and menacing.  In a strange way he also looked comfortable.  David didn’t feel the same as me.  He poked him with a stick.  Provoking hibernating bears on a dreamscape mountain side that is steep and layered with deadfall is a nonsensical thing to do in any scenario.  You can’t count on speed, running across deadfall and bears are fast even running down hill.  But, poking a hibernating bear with a stick when armed with nothing more than the poking stick is really illogical.  Bears are mean when they are sleepy.

It took a bit, at least a poke or two, but David woke that bear up.  He looked at David, he looked at me and then he got pissed.   It took him awhile to get down off the log.  Longer than I was expecting but it still wasn’t long enough.  He was on top of us quickly.   Steaming behind us, bear breathe, grunting and growling.  I remember wishing David hadn’t poked the bear at all.  He could have just left him there sleeping, and that would have been much better.  The bear would be sleeping on the log and David and I would be sitting by a river watching trout jump and feeling pretty good.  Instead we were bounding down a hillside, flying from log to log (with otherworldly precision) trying to evade a pissed off black bear.  David dropped the stick too, so there was also that. 

 The landscape shifted when running from the bear.  My perspective changed.  I was outside myself, looking down, pulling the strings.  I could see the forest, David me and the bear all running in circles.  From my new vantage point the bear wasn’t so clearly in charge.  We all looked ridiculous chasing each other.  The scenery was stunning. 

Things were happening quickly now for the three of us.  Someone hit the fast forward button.  David and I got smarter.  I ran in one direction and David in another things, we looped backwards, we sidestepped, we juked and jived.  Things got tricky for the bear.  He couldn’t eat both of us.

Dave left, me right, running in circles.  The bear still sleepy but driven by bearlust, a need for revenge.  Wouldn’t it be easier to let us be, to forget about the poking?  This chasing stuff wasn’t going well for anybody.   But we kept running and circling and bounding from log to log;  all three of us in some sort of mad revenge seeking, kill or be killed scenario.  I could see it all from above, like a video game.

The hill got steeper.  It fell away into a long scree slop that gave way to sheer cliffs.  The scree might be manageable, but the cliff, no one could run down that, it was a real cliff.  Back together now, Dave and I evaluated our options.  We jumped.  We had no choice, the bear was right no top of us.  We hit the scree first, together, sliding crazily toward the drop.  Heels digging, rocks spraying, grabbing, trying to hang on.  I caught the root of a low hanging scrub and was able to stop the free fall.  David did the same.  We were close enough to the cliff to see down, into the river valley below.  It was a really pretty place.    

Above, the bear looked down at us confused.  If he was less pissed he would have realized there was no way for us to get back up the scree slope without coming right to him.   He could have waited us out.  But he was still really mad and he wasn’t thinking clearly.  Anger does that.  He jumped down after us and began the sliding, digging, rock spraying all over again.  He was headed right at me, more bear breathe, snout almost white compared to the rest of him.  Sliding down hill and headed right between David and I. 

If he had opposable thumbs we would have been in big trouble.  As it was he couldn’t grab a bunch of roots and stop.  He couldn’t stop at all really.  He careened right between us, belly first, short bear arms splayed in four directions, perplexed by a bad decision and finally more focused on surviving than on revenge.  It was too late for the bear.  We watched him slide right past us and right off the cliff.  Bear faaaaalllliiiiinnnnnggggg.  Nobody likes to get poked with a stick when they are sleeping, but is it worth dying over?  Huh, bear?