Bear Encounters of the Third Kind

Finding a bear here in the park is by no means unheard of, but it is still a special occasion when you get to see one. The first bear I saw was on a float trip down the river. The bear was walking behind some trees in the opposite direction of the river's flow- two words to describe my view of the first bear are: quick and obscured. Although the bear was moving in no hurry, he was gone as quickly as he appeared. The second time I saw a bear was from inside a car as we drove to the town of Jackson. The bear was a quarter-mile away on the side of a hill. I don't think anyone even cared enough to stop and observe. I guess being on-time for Transformers 2 was more appealing to everyone else. Altogether, my two views of bears were lackluster in every way imaginable. What I had wanted to see was a bear come out of nowhere and roll down a hill, careening into the side of an unsuspecting deer and take a monster-sized bite out of it. I wanted to see the circle of life. Well actually, I just wanted intense action; I wanted nature in its rawest state. The third time I saw a bear, I would get my chance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1GdZI1oPEE

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Okay, so I didn't actually get to see that but my story was close to being as exhilarating as watching a domesticated bear ride a moped in circles. Unfortunately, Murphy's Law came into play on my third bear viewing experience as I did not have my camera with me even though I take it with me everywhere.

Dancing in my underwear for the Olympics won me free dinner and it was when we were coming back from our free victory dinner that we first saw the bear action begin.

Riding in an open air Jeep Wrangler, we pulled off the road onto a gravel overlook that had an uninterrupted view of the low grasslands in front of Jackson Lake. On most days, herds of Elk can be seen eating in the grassland around dusk. It just so happened to be one of those days around that time. The elk where peacefully munching away until something spooked the entire herd into running. Then, out of the tall grass stumbled a burly grizzly bear. It took a moment before we realized what we saw, and by the time we did, the bear had broken into a sprint after the elk. The bear moved quickly even though it was not graceful. With each and every step, the bear was moving hundreds of pounds of muscle, fat, and fur, but when the bear got up to speed its momentum was unstoppable. A crash course with one of the elk would easily crush it into the ground and disable any option of escape.

The pursuit began with the chasing of the entire herd. Moving as one mass, the herd would run slower than they could run individually. Occasionally, a few elk would break off of the group and, when this happened, the bear would kick it into high gear. The elk was barely able to run at a higher speed than the bear but it was just enough to not get caught. However, the bear tried to cut corners and make up any distance it could in hopes a young elk would trip and fall victim. The bear's chance for dinner were fairly high since the young elk were still learning how to completely harness the mobility of their legs- insufficient practice could have resulted in a life-ending small stumble.
The rest of the herd stopped running as soon they were no longer being pursued. Even if the bear was a couple dozen yards away, the herd would not move unless directly threatened. Either out of laziness or intelligence (conserving all energy possible) the herd was doing the bare minimum to keep a distance from the bear.

We leaned out the Jeep and watched the bear chase the elk in circles around the open grassland. Every now and then, a couple cars began to stop alongside the road because they saw us pulled over. For several minutes we all watched the bear in pursuit. Every couple of minutes the bear would stop to catch his breath. During one of these breath-takers, a decision was made by someone to drive the Jeep back home and grab some binoculars and a camera. The rest of us were too enthralled by what was going on in front of us to leave. We hopped out of the Jeep and watched the bear chase the elk into a different field before it disappeared into the tall grass once again.
Time moved slowly as we waited for the bear to reappear. We waited as the sun began falling behind the mountains. Infrequently, we saw elk moving in our direction through the tall grass but our eyes could not catch a glimpse of the bear. We scanned the grass relentlessly until, finally, I saw a brown object moving in the grass 100 yards in front of us. About 15 seconds later, an elk popped out of the tall grass. My hopes were squashed; it was just an elk, but I didn't think about why the elk was coming out of the grass: the elk was running from the bear. A few seconds after the elk came out of the brush, the bear stumbled out as well.

By now, a dozen cars had stopped, including our returning Jeep with a camera and binoculars. People began to point and talk excitedly as the bear sat down to rest 30 yards away. A minute or so later the bear decided to get up and walk west alongside the bottom of the hill which we were all watching from. He disappeared into thick brush and we decided to take action and predict where he would show up next.

We drove down the road and staked out our positions as we waited. No bear showed up. We waited more until we got back in the Jeep and headed to where we had last saw the bear. Upon on our return we found dozens upon dozens of more cars and people. It had become a zoo. Listening to people's words and the tone of voice which they used, I searched for strangers to inadvertently tell me where the best spot to see the bear was. The pacing was frantic and we could sense that the people were close to being able to see the bear even though no one could. Judging from the fact that the bear did not head west like we had anticipated, I headed to the easternmost point of the of where people had gathered. I assumed the bear must have simply gone in the other direction.
As soon as I arrived, a young girl climbed up on top of her family's SUV and spotted the bear. Standing on my tippy-toes I caught a glimpse of the bear moving east in the brush. The road headed west as well, parallel to the bear so I began to walk on the road until I was stopped by an off-duty Ranger. Almost losing her voice in the excitement, I did not hear her until her second warning. After she told me that she thought the bear might cross the road I stopped walking and flagged the Jeep to come down over by me. As the Jeep pulled up, I had to explain that the bear was right up to our right and was moving west along the road.

I grabbed the roll bars of the Jeep and jumped in the backseat and we drove slowly on the road. Our eyes scoured the brush like our lives depended on it until the Jeep suddenly stopped. My boss, who was riding shotgun, saw something moving to our right and the driver had stopped. Sure enough, twenty yards off the road was the bear, moseying through the bushes. Cars parked behind us and cars parked in front of us, the stood alone on the road. We had found the only view of the bear.
In the bushes, the bear continued walking parallel to the road until he took a turn onto a game trail. The trail had switched the bear's path from directly parallel to directly perpendicular to the road. As quickly as the bear turned onto the path, I traced the path as it came up the ditch and onto the road. I was able to trace the trail because I was staring directly down it. The Jeep had become parked directly in obstruction of the bear's path. If the bear was planning on crossing the road, it was going to walk next to our Jeep.



With each passing second, the bear was drawing closer on a dead set path to the Jeep. In the backseat I was sitting on the far side, away from the bear, and my coworker Liz was sitting on the closer side. As the bear climbed the ditch, I waited for the Jeep to start moving, but it didn't. Liz began to lean back and frantically slide across the seat, away from the bear. In contrast, I reacted by leaning forward and trying to slide closer, for a better view. Each step the bear took towards the Jeep, the friction between Liz and I became more intense. I couldn't get enough. I wanted to have the best view possible. I wanted to get as close as possible, and that is when I realized the bear was on the road, within ten feet of us. The driver finally decided to inch the Jeep forward because the bumbling bear showed no signs of stopping on its path. The movement was not aggressive as he walked behind our Jeep. I could have jumped out and hugged the bear if I didn't value my life. Its fur was scraggly and its eyes were dark. It paid no mind to the crowd of tourists that had come to watch it. It simply continued on the trail across the road until it was climbing down the ditch on the other side. I looked in front of us and I looked behind us. We were still alone on the road. Behind us stood a crowd of people watching our encounter with the bear. A barrier of fifty feet floated between the sane tourists and us. We fumbled with the camera as the bear disappeared into the brush, and just like that, the bear was gone.

High off the adrenaline rush, we thought we could try and predict the next spot where the bear would come out. We rushed over to another area with an open field and an open view. A caravan of cars followed us, assuming we knew something they did not. Our reputation had been established among the tourists and our followers wanted what we had. Unfortunately, our luck and impeccable timing had run out.

We headed home as the last light of twilight evaporated into the summer sky. All in all, it was an exciting run in with a bear. On second thought, maybe I would rather watch a bear master the art of moped riding. One thing I learned when reading Guns, Germs, and Steel is that certain animals cannot be domesticated. Seeing as bears are an animal that cannot be completely domesticated, teaching a bear to ride moped is quite a feat. I mean, who thinks of these things? A bear riding a moped is comic genius but someone's face probably got mauled off in the process. I guess that is the price we pay for thinking we can control and harness everything in the world. In fact, I'll probably die being stupid and stubborn in the face of something I cannot control. I simply trust that God has a plan for me to carry out before that happens.