Bear Stories

Well, hmmm . . . let me lean back in my chair and think a bit.

As I recall, my first bear story goes back to the late 1940’s, when I was travelling through Yosemite with Ruth and her son Roger. The exact details have been lost to me, but I do remember a bear on its hind legs pushing on the side of the car where I was sitting, and me trying mightily to roll the window up. I think that this was part of a photo-op because there used to be a now-vanished picture taken by Roger of the front of his Ford with the bear leaning against the side.

We would then have to skip to the 1960’s. It was the end of the season in Tuolumne Meadows and I and my 1953 Plymouth had the campground virtually to ourselves. I decided to sleep outside. Late at night I heard someone walking through my camp. What an inconsiderate oaf! I thought. Of course, the mighty crash of my aluminum cookset hitting the ground came soon after. After what seemed like an eternity of struggling with my sleeping bag zipper, I jumped up, only to have my pants drop down to the ground. Yanking up my pants, I circled around to the Plymouth, got in and stayed there the rest of the night.

There have been other bear stories, and I guess that you can tell by now that I have a new one to add to the collection.

August 2, 2008, Saturday, 2:15 AM, Green Creek Campground: Hali and I have put our ice chests into the camper shell and covered them up, as per instructions and are now sound asleep. You guessed it. Slam! Bang! Instant wakefulness.

"Oh, wonderful," I groaned. I scrambled for my flashlight, got the tent door partially open, shot the light out to see . . . yup, a big bear form, one of the ice chests on the ground with the upper camper shell door flipped open. Mr. Bear stared at me a minute, then went back to his booty. Crunch! Munch!

We started to dither: the thing was . . . he had already gotten to our food. We didn’t want to put ourselves in the position of coming between a bear and his food. It was at that particular moment that Ed, the Camp Host, wandered by. Ed was up because apparently the bear had been making his rounds of the other camp sites. As it turned out, Ed was familiar with the bear and was able to chase him off.

That left us to do some more dithering as well as clean up the mess. Hali got out a trash bag; most of the ice chest’s contents had to be tossed, of course. So there went our Trader Joe camembert, our precooked bacon, our plans for a nice Eggs Benedict breakfast. However, even that late, I was able to grasp the fact that the Diet Coke can with the bear claw puncture would make a really nifty souvenir. And here’s the amazing thing: no damage to either the truck or to the ice chest! Thanks, Mr. Bear!

Next morning I got up as soon as it turned light, and did an Errol Morris reconstruction/re-enactment of the scene, a "Tundra Tableau."

Photos: Tundra Tableau—Sierra Nevada, 2008; Diet Coke with Bear Claw Puncture—Sierra Nevada, 2008