- "It has been said that the influences surrounding
the first four years of life command the future directions of the child
in its life to come. Had I been raised in bleak urban surroundings, I
am certain my life would have been vastly different...all children deserve
contact with Nature as a part of their heritage. This is not, unfortunately,
the general pattern of civilization. Untold millions are doomed to live
in insufficiency because of failure to realize the importance of experience
with the natural world.
-
- "Generations to come will suffer for our embezzlement
of resources, practical and spiritual, that were my heritage. The more
our children see and know the natural world, the better equipped they will
be to face the basic realities of life and realize the noble potentials
of existence this planet has to offer." -- Ansel Adams
-
- My friend, Pam, and I pedaled through Wyoming on our
way to Alaska one summer when we rode into the jaws of danger. If you're
headed for disaster, preparation is nine tenths of survival in the wilderness.
-
- Yellowstone is the father of our national parks system.
The Grand Teton Mountains puncture the sky like broken shards of glass.
Old Faithful vents itself on the hour. Bear, elk, coyotes, moose and
bison roam the landscape, while majestic eagles soar in the endless skies
overhead. This region is one of America's famous wilderness sanctuaries.
-
- Pam and I heard a story late in the afternoon from a
camper-van couple as we pedaled north on the Rockefeller Memorial Parkway
leading into Yellowstone. Outlandish! Their story was too impossible
to happen. Because of it, a bear was loose in Yellowstone that had tasted
human blood.
-
- I had heard of people doing stupid things like walking
up to a female moose with two calves to take a picture. Their lives were
in danger and they were lucky not to have been stomped to death. Some
had been. A fellow bicyclist in Alaska wanted to see a grizzly up close.
He left a fresh salmon carcass on the ground outside his tent. Nature
granted his wish with a 1,000 pound grizzly. That bicyclist wouldn't forget
his meeting with a bear. He was mauled.
-
- One night in a camping area in Yosemite, I woke up with
Pam clamping on my arm with fingernails like vice grips. She had heard
a bear outside our tent. We looked out the nylon flaps to the campsite
next to ours. A bear was licking a dirty pan on the picnic table.
-
- "Do you think he's going to come over to our tent?"
Pam whispered.
-
- "Naw," I reassured her. "Our food is
in a metal box. We're safe."
-
- "Look at him," she said, her fingernails clamping
into my arm again. "He's sniffing their tent."
-
- "He's clawing their tent," I said.
-
- The bear stood up on his legs and ripped a long slash
into our neighbor's tent. We heard a muffled scream. Seconds later, two
children followed by their parents sprinted toward their car. The bear
waded into their tent, ripping and grunting as he tore everything to shreds.
-
- "What if he comes over to our tent?" Pam said.
-
- "We can run over to our bikes and jump in the back
seat," I joked.
-
- "Great," she groaned. "You're so comforting."
-
- The bear sauntered into the woods after he found his
prize. The next morning, we found out one of the kids had left a Hostess
Cupcake Bon Bon half-eaten in his pocket. The bear sniffed it out. In
the process he shredded a thousand dollars worth of camping gear.
-
- But the story the camper-van couple told us topped anything
I had ever heard. Many foreigners had seen American cartoons, and Yogi
Bear and Boo Boo in "Jellystone Park" were funny characters.
But bears in Yellowstone were no laughing matter. They were hungry and
ate anything. An Oriental family was visiting Yellowstone with their five-year-old
child. At a point not far north of us, they had stepped out of their car
and approached a bear that was trying to cross the highway. People snapped
pictures from every angle, blocking his path. The couple thought the bear
was cute, so the husband walked across the road followed by the mother
carrying a camera. The beast stood still while the father walked up and
placed the boy on the bear's shoulders. The kid grabbed the animal's ears.
The father backed up while the mother took a picture. The child suddenly
pulled on the bear's ears.
-
- A second later, the bear shook the kid off its neck and
mauled it. The parents screamed. The bear chased them. The woman reached
the car first and jumped into the back seat slamming the door behind her.
The husband wasn't as quick. Sliding into the front driver's side, he
didn't get the door closed fast enough. The bear ripped a few creases
into the man's shoulder. At that point a brave person in another car rescued
the child. Mayhem broke loose with people screaming and the parents in
shock as they sat in their car crying in pain and anguish over their child.
-
- The confused bear ran wild until he made his way back
into the woods, not knowing why horns were honking and people were yelling
at him.
-
- After that story, we were uneasy about camping. We had
no choice because no vacancies existed in the park. The rangers would
not let us camp unless it was in a regulation spot. We were frightened
as darkness surrounded us like a movie theater just before a "SCREAM
I" film was about to roll. For one of the few times in my life, I
was nervous--no--I was scared.
-
- That's when my best wilderness instincts came into play.
Pam and I pulled our bicycles into the bush about 200 yards off the highway.
We smelled sulfur nearby and headed toward it. Even with a quiet breeze
whispering through a dense mantle of pine trees, sulfur gasses permeated
our surroundings. With a darkening sky, we pitched camp by a steaming
fumarole. The air smelled like a dozen drunks, who had smoked a carton
of cigarettes, drank ten cups of coffee and eaten double helpings of rotten
boiled eggs for breakfast. It was dank, disgusting, odious and down right
sickening--just the way I wanted it, so not even a bear would come sniffing
around our camp.
-
- I strung 50 feet of my nylon parachute cord two feet
off the ground around our campsite. Having picked up a tin can from the
highway, I filled it with rocks and set it up to fall when the rope was
tripped. That would give us a signal that the bear was heading our way.
After we had locked the bikes up, we retired to the tent. I wasn't through
with our escape plans.
-
- "You have your knife?" I asked Pam.
-
- "Yes."
-
- "Open the blade and leave it in your riding gloves."
-
- "What for?"
-
- "If that bear comes around, we may have to cut our
way out of this tent, and run for a tree."
-
- "Won't he climb after us?"
-
- "They won't climb trees under five inches in diameter,
so pick out a skinny one."
-
- "Great," Pam lamented, not too excited about
our prospects for a good night's sleep. "How could those people be
so stupid?"
-
- "Don't ask me."
-
- "What's that rope for?" Pam asked, spying two
six-foot long pieces of nylon next to me.
-
- "One's for you."
-
- "What for?"
-
- "If that bear comes, I want you to slash the side
of the tent and make a run for the trees. Make sure you take this piece
of rope with you."
-
- "Why?"
-
- "Well, that bear's going to go after one of us,"
I said. "Let's run in opposite directions. If you shinny up a tree,
you should be safe."
-
- "But what's the rope for?" she asked again.
-
- "Just in case the bear comes after me, I want to
be prepared."
-
- "What do you mean?"
-
- "If he climbs up the tree after me, I'm going to
be a dead man. He'll grab my legs first and yank me down out of the tree
and eat me. To save myself from going through that kind of pain, I'm going
to use this rope to hang myself first. That way, I won't know what happens."
-
- "Great idea," Pam said. "I suppose you
want me to do the same."
-
- "It's your option."
-
- "You're so romantic...."
-
- Next morning, we woke up relieved to be alive. We packed
our bikes and pedaled to the Old Faithful attraction. The famous geyser
blasted into the summer morning with a plume of steam. To the relief of
everyone, the bear was captured.
-
- As we look back on that night, we laugh at the events
of the evening, especially the two six foot pieces of rope.
-
- I would have hung myself before that bear got me!
-
- Over the years, I have placed myself in danger, not on
purpose, but it came with the territory. I chuckle at all the people who
try to make their lives so safe, when, in reality, a 'bear' situation could
take them out at any moment. They essentially will never camp next to
a 'steam vent' or worry about being eaten by a mountain lion. And, that's
okay, because we all get to choose our levels of involvement in life's
game.
-
- But for me, I like what Helen Keller said, "Life
is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature."
-
- And so it is--one moment in the future, another bear
will be waiting for me.
-
- I'll be ready with my six feet of rope....
-
-
-
- Excerpt from: Bicycling Around the World: Tire Tracks
for Your Imagination by Frosty Wooldridge, copies available at: 1 888 280
7715
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