John Foley

So there I was, hiking along a riverbed in the Mount Hood Wilderness, enjoying the scenery in front of me – glaciers dripping off the massive peak, sheer canyon walls, the roaring river a few feet away. I was planning to go another hundred yards or so, take a picture, then return to the Pacific Crest Trail…I’m not sure why I turned to look behind me – I rarely do on hikes. Perhaps it was some atavistic instinct, the ancient hunter within sensing something amiss…In any case, there was a large black bear crossing the river about 200 yards away. I picked up my pace but soon came to a jumble of boulders that made passage all but impossible. The river was to the south and sheer canyon walls to the north, so I was trapped. When I looked again, the bear was about a hundred yards back and coming directly towards me; I felt very much like prey for the predator…I’d recently written a novel that includes a bear attack, but must admit the irony of the situation was lost on me at that point. Moreover, I wrote respectfully about bears in the book, and I’ve never hunted the magnificent creatures. I also have a healthy fear of bears, based on what I’ve heard and read. When he was in college in Houghton, Michigan, way out in the middle of nowhere on the Upper Peninsula, my brother once attended a bear wrestling contest. A cruel sport, of course, on the same level as dog fighting. He said the large black bear was muzzled, declawed and clearly drugged. But when the first “wrestler” put a headlock on the bruin and began pummeling him, the bear came out of his haze and casually flung the man into the second row. No other wrestlers clambered into the ring…The un-muzzled, fully-clawed, drug-free bear was now 40 yards away. There was some ammunition in the form of small rocks that I intended to use, but first I raised my hiking stick overhead and yelled, “Go home, bear! Go home!” Yeah, I know, more irony – he was home, and I was essentially trespassing in his living room. I vaguely wondered if the bear was my karma coming to get me. I hadn’t done anything bad lately, that I could recall, not for years…Well, there was that flap about the Obama/Huck Finn column, but that was just an experiment with p.r. and satire! I wanted to sell some books! No harm intended!…I remembered a columnist in Alaska who took relish in writing stories about foolish tourists dying in the wild. Naturally, he was mauled by a grizzly when his gun jammed – now that was karma in action…The bear raised up on his hind legs to look at me. Standing like that, he seemed at least seven feet tall. I dropped my stick and picked up a handful of rocks…I recalled Werner Herzog’s GRIZZLY MAN, the documentary about “Bear Whisperer” Timothy Treadwell, who spent 13 summers among grizzlies in Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska. He was appalled when bear watchers threw rocks at “Mr. Chocolate” when the grizzly came too close. Of course, Treadwell was eventually attacked and consumed by one of his “pets.” I thought he was misguided, but admired the obvious affection he had for animals, as well as his courage…Still, I was not going to whisper sweet nothings to Mr. Black Bear and hope for the best. No, I was going to throw rocks as hard and fast as I could, and if that did not deter him, grab my stick and try to take out his eyes…My Irish side, I guess…After taking a long look at me and growling, the bear dropped and, to my relief, turned and trotted back in the direction he came. My heart pounded hard for another couple of minutes. I kept a cold eye on the ursine while retracing my own steps, and was relieved to see him run up a steep slope and disappear in the woods to the north…By the way, it would have taken me about fifteen minutes of exhausted slogging to go up the slope that the bear covered in about fifteen seconds. They are amazing creatures, and I feel lucky to live in a part of the country where they thrive – and I’m relieved that our encounter ended peacefully.