A close encounter of the bear kind

Not the same bear. This one ran 

through our yard in Valdez then 

hid behind a tree in a yard across

the street.

 After a black bear and her cubs interrupted a foot race in Anchorage recently, an Alaska-themed 
facebook page asked followers to offer their stories of bear encounters. While considering that I realized I had never put an account of my closest grizzly encounter here, so rather than lose it among many and perhaps more exciting stories, I’m putting mine here instead.

It happened this way: If you’ve read this blog before you probably know the cabin at the East Pole stands high on a hillside. In the days when I smoked, rather than have the place smell like a smoker lived there, my favorite place to smoke was leaning out an open window with a view downhill and all the way to Denali. Doing that a day after I’d hiked in one August, I heard a loud crack of wood below me and somewhat off to the west. As I watched, a full-grown grizzly broke out of the brush at the bottom of the hill. Behind her came one, and then another and then a third cub. These were second-year cubs almost fully grown but just enough smaller than the mother to identify them as yearlings.

As they progressed across the bottom of the hill the sow approached the beaten down weeds I had trampled on my way up to the cabin the day before. I figured she would catch my scent and want nothing to do with a human and head on to the east. Instead, she halted, snuffled a little, lifted her head to look around and then put her nose down and turned to follow my trail. I watched her slowly progress toward the turn that led uphill and when she reached it she started up the hill with the cubs hot on her heels. As the situation developed, it proved fascinating for a time until I realized she would follow that trail right to the cabin and maybe I should get ahead of this situation before it turned serious. With a warning flashing in my head of a friend’s comment one time:  “I like to make it uncomfortable for bears to be around me,” I crossed the cabin considering the options. I decided to grab the large-bore rifle I carry for bears, but also a handful of bottle rockets and a lighter from a stash I keep next to the door for just such occasions.

Then I stepped out onto the porch. I did that just in time to see her back as she turned the corner in tall grass that led straight to the cabin, her nose still down on the trail. At this point she only had about 50 feet to where I stood and she was approaching fast.

Not letting go of the rifle, I fumbled a bottle rocket out of the pack and holding it in the hand and arm that also cradled the rifle, I flicked the lighter and lit the fuse. I held it long enough for sparks to begin coming out of the cracker with enough force to fly off and let it go. It landed in front of her just before it went off.

What happened next left a lasting impression. First I heard a roar, then she stood up on her hind legs, her head swinging from side to side trying to locate the source of what to her probably had changed from food to danger. Now, any grizzly or brown bear I had ever been close to was stuffed and on display. In those poses, the fur is always matted down and the bear looks skinny. Let me tell you a full-grown, live bear only 20 feet from you with its fur puffed out looks a whole lot more formidable  than that bear in the airport. Still I kept my head and managed to light off another bottle rocket. This one hit her high in the chest between her forelegs when it went off. With that she let out another roar and did something of a bear pirouette, dropped down onto the first cub in line where it squealed loudly. All three took off running back down the hill.

I watched them disappear into thick brush, but as I listened, the sounds of their escape stopped way too soon. They had gone out of sight, then apparently stopped still trying to figure out what she was running from. I’m not sure she ever saw me standing on the porch above her.

After that experience I found a use for this gift from my
            kids. Motion detector Billy Bass ought to frighten any
            bear off the porch. "Take me to the river …"

With my friend’s advice still loud in my head, I tried to make their visit more uncomfortable yet and fired another rocket in the general direction they had run. I heard another roar and then what sounded like four bulldozers hurriedly pushing through the brush in a generally northwest direction. This time their noise slowly fell off as they made their way farther from the cabin and I started to breathe a little easier. In time I couldn’t hear them anymore and figured that was the last I would see of them, at least that day. I took some bear precautions like putting some pots and pans on the porch that would make noise if they came up onto it.

About half an hour later, I was moving around outside (my rifle close at hand) and I heard three distinct gunshots quite a distance away in the direction the bears had headed. At that point I found myself hoping someone hadn’t shot them — that those were just “bottle-rocket” warning shots.

At that point I took a little measure of congratulations to self; we had met with no damage to anyone and we all lived and maybe even the bears had learned a lesson in avoiding humans. When I hiked out a couple of days later I watched the trail carefully where I guessed those shots had been fired but saw no signs of a violent meeting anywhere.

Black bears interrupt Mayor's Marathon

Lost hiker found after bear encounter

Aging — a different perspective

Two incidents recently brought about a detour on the road through aging. The first was fairly simple. As I was waiting for the consultation on my regular semi-annual lab tests. As I was waiting for my turn I watched an elderly man hobble out — bent over, moving slowly, shuffling his feet in short steps. I watched until he disappeared. Later after the meeting with the doctor, I was checking out and had a brief interchange with the doctor and the office manager. The latter asked how I was doing. I looked at the doctor and said “she could probably tell you better than I can. I feel pretty darn good.” I don’t know why but I always like to joke with medical people.” I mentioned a couple of problems had turned up then blew it off saying I all told I am in great shape and added “and I bet I am older than that guy who just shuffled out of here.” The doctor’s eyes widened, but then she agreed” “Yes, you are.” With that and feeling good I skipped out of the place.

The second one was a little more intricate and gave a pause for the cause. I went for a consultation over an ultrasound examination of my carotid arteries, both have which have been operated on in recent years to clear blockages. (I know, hold your snickers; there WAS a reduction of blood flow to my brain. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?) Anyway in the lead-up to the meeting an aide was gathering my vital information and in the process accidentally called me old. Then she caught herself and apologized effusively.

I told her she didn’t have to apologize. I said, don’t; I AM old, I’m 78 for crying out loud.”

“Yeah but …”

“Look,” I said, “ I don’t mind being old and I don’t deny it and I don’t try to look or feel younger.

“ You can’t fix aging, but you can deal with it.”

“First you have to own it. Accept it. You are never going to be younger so why worry about that? “And you really can’t fight it.

“But you don’t have to give in to it. Keep doing what you want to do, even if you have to slow down a bit or figure out better ways to lift heavy objects and most of all (in my case anyway) stay focused on what you are doing, don’t let your mind wander when you start out to do something. That way you will have fewer times when you walk into the kitchen and forget why you went there. I'm mpot talking about the bigger things in life that take focus, but more about the minor things like walking or tying your shoes. Last wintr I was walk among the woodpiles under the cabin and instead of watching where I was going my mind went somewhere else. Not focused on where I stepped I put my full body weight onto a chunk of firewood that rolled underneath my foot, I lost my balance, twisted as I fell and landed on my back, slamming my head hard on one of the cabin's support pilings. I had to check myself for a concussion after that one. Or it can be even simpler. I have often found myself in tying up my boots, my fingers wrestling with laces for minutes at a time while my mind gos off to vist a girlfriend from 1981. That's the stuff that needs focus.

I used to joke about memory loss, minor loss anyway, like when you can’t remember the name of an actor in a movie, or that the safety lock on your chainsaw is most likely why you can’t rotate the chain. It’s because at this age you have so much more embedded in your memory than when you were younger and it takes longer to find a single bit of information. So, not an age problem but a data and machine memory storage problem. Then I read one day that there is scientific research done on this very subject and my joke is true. The mind stores immense numbers of information bytes and has difficulty finding a single fact in all that storage. I wish I had saved the article.

So, moving on, owning my age and even looking forward to what I can do at 80, which is only a year and a half away.

I have never been one to set long-term abstract goals, but one keeps turning up and popping out of that database. I don’t wish him or that guy hobbling out of the doctor’s office any ill. My aging had nothing to do with them and theirs has nothing to do with mine, except for one little thing.

I would like to outlive Keith Richards. That’s all.

Kitty

 How long has it been? Six years plus, I think, since the day “they” picked you up. A long silence. I have no idea if you’re dead of alive. Alive, I hope, and in your mid-30s. The only reason I am writing today is I watched The Golden Compass tonight. That is one of the movies we were going to watch together and it brought you to mind. I guess from now on I will watch them alone. I won’t load you up with my story because there are lots of ways to keep track of me and if you give a shit at all you have done it already. So, best wishes. The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful,