Bears Make Strange Fireside Guests!

My husband, Bruce, and I have a deep fondness for nature. We enjoy everything about the outdoors, and in particular camping. Now when I say "camping," I'm not talking about hauling all the necessities of home to an established campsite or R.V. Park. I'm talking about setting up a camp in the middle of untamed wilderness.

We have a good friend whose idea of "Camping" is sleeping with his windows open, and another who drives a 100 thousand dollar giant motor home into a KOA campground and turns his kids loose with skateboards, I-Pods and dirt bikes. So, lose that image of camping and think of our outings as being more like Lewis and Clark...or even Star Trek ("Where no man has ever gone before.")

Alright, well if you have the picture let me tell you about a particular camping trip we had not too terribly long ago. We are, as I have established, seasoned campers. We know all the rules of wilderness camping, and we take the necessary safety precautions. That is...most of the time.

Here's what happened: On this particular outing I was cursed with one of the most piercing migraine headaches that I think any human has ever endured. I kept thinking maybe I had been shot in the head and didn't know it. There were no holes and no blood, but still I kept checking...it was that bad.

This particular night we had followed an old abandoned logging road that wound us up around and though a dense forest. We were fortunate to find a fairly even spot next to a babbling creek that offered an ideal spot to spend the night.

Thinking that maybe a good hot meal would help matters, Bruce lit a campfire and I began to unload the food from two monstrously large ice chests in our trusty old CJ-7 Jeep. We may be fond of wilderness camping, but food is not something we sacrifice in order to participate in the sport. We eat very very well.

While I sizzled 2 steaks over the fire, Bruce set up the tent. While he unloaded the sleeping gear, I nestled a couple of pre-baked potatoes down into the hot coals to heat, and nudged tin-foil wrapped garlic bread next to it. While he secured the jeep and took out our precautionary weapon, I popped open a container of Waldorf Salad (Seriously ...we eat well on these trips.)

When the steaks were ready we hunkered down on a log and ate like royalty. The headache didn't respond to food and I was feeling lousy, so I broke a serious camping rule. The number one golden rule of wilderness camping. Never ever ever keep food or used utensils near the area where you are sleeping.

Now, generally we take the rule to the extreme and suspend our ice chests on a rope from a tree limb. I never wash utensils within 100 yards of the camp. However with my mega headache I thought "what the heck..we never see bears." and I broke that one little rule...just once. I simply tossed the utensils in the creek to deal with the next morning, and I put the ice chests back in the jeep.

Ok...so I'm sure you know by now what is about to happen. If you are squeamish you can stop reading now.

Sometime around 2am, Bruce and I were awakened from a sound sleep by a low guttural growl. Both of us shot up into a sitting position in our sleeping bags. Bruce said "did you hear that? we have a bear close by!" My only response was my chattering teeth. We sat completely motionless and listened. Again there came a low guttural growl, this time a bit closer than the first one we heard.

Bruce slowly unzipped the sleeping bag and crawled to his knees. Barely breathing we listened. We heard silence broken every few minutes by a growl... it headed directly toward our tent. It couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards off.

"The gun" he hissed... "I can't find the gun!" OMG! had I put it back in the jeep in my near coma state because of the headache? I couldn't remember! "OK" he said "we should be fine, there are only black bears in this area..I'm going to go to the jeep and look for the gun." He stood and as he was about to unzip the door flap on the tent he said "It's a good thing you secured the food."

Double OMG! "Wait" I choked out "Actually I didn't." He whirled around in horror and whispered so loudly it sounded like air escaping from a truck tire "YOU WHAT?"

The growling kept inching toward us...what to do? Finally Bruce said "I'll go ahead and unlock the jeep, then you run out and jump in. If things get bad we can always start it and drive away!"

Good plan! Ok...so that is what we did. We both hurled ourselves into the jeep with such force it's a wonder the tires didn't blow out from our sudden impact . We sat and we waited. Occasionally Bruce would roll his window down slightly and listen. When he wasn't listening he was chastising me for my negligence. What could I say except "I know, I know...I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

For the longest time the growling noise circled around us, then finally grew silent. We checked our watches, it was nearly 4am. We had been sitting in the jeep for nearly 3 hours awaiting our fate.

Finally as the sun began to creep over the tops of the trees and filter down into our campsite we decided to leave our metal cocoon and look for paw prints to see how close we came to being a midnight snack for a hungry bear.

With gun in hand we circled the camp, but found no signs of bear. No scat, no clawed trees, no prints.

About an hour later as we sat in the back of the jeep eating beef jerky (the gourmet breakfast was postponed for obvious reasons ) we heard another vehicle coming up the logging road. We assumed it was bear hunters.

To our surprise a beat up old red Ford pick-up truck eventually pulled up next to the jeep and an old wrangler stepped down. "Hey, howdy folks" he said grinning "Don't often see folks up in this part of the woods." He looked around at our campsite and nodded thoughtfully.

Bruce started to tell him about the visitor we'd had during the night but before he got to far into the story...He old guy scrunched up his lips and pushed his hat back a bit and said "I'll jest bet that was old Hank, That's about what he sounds like when he's stressed...I'm up here looking for him."

Well it turns out that "Old Hank" was a 12 year old renegade bovine bull that apparently suffers from Alzheimer's disease and often wanders off from the rest of the herd and gets lost.

Bruce protested and said it sure sounded like a bear to us, but the old guy said "Nope I'll just bet that was Hank, best be after him before he completely looses himself." as he got in his truck we heard him mumble "should just shoot that ol'......"

Later as we were breaking camp, the old wrangler came back by with "Old Hank" tethered in the back of his pick-up as they slowly drove past us the old wrangler tipped his hat and Old Hank give us a familiar growl.

It just isn't right that an old bull can sound like a bear and scare people half to death!