The best ever bear bell

So that was my little bear incident, and it made me realize that all the time I was carrying that damn annoying bear bell last year, it probably actually was working. (You always think your bear bell is unnecessary, because you never see any bears when you are hiking with a bear bell. But that's the thing about bear bells... was it unnecessary? or was it doing its job really, really well?)

So I went into town the next day to the hiking store to buy a bear bell and pepper spray. But they didn't have bear bells! They were out of bear bells! Oh noooo! I did buy the pepper spray ("35 FOOT MAX DISTANCE ULTRA 2% CAPSAICIN PEPPER SPRAY! Caution, do not provoke bears with pepper spray on purpose")

The idiotic salesman kept telling me pepper spray "works better" than a bear bell - well, it's true that a bear bell won't stop a bear from charging, but the POINT Is, the bear bell keeps it from charging in the first place. You want to have both, but if you have to pick one I honestly would've picked the bear bell. The bear bell lets it know you're coming.

I did buy the pepper spray. But I was really bothered by the lack of a bear bell. I couldn't find my bear bell from last year. I'd been planning on hiking Signal Mountain the next day, and while Jenny Lake is only on the fringe of grizz territory, Signal Mountain is what you could call Heavy Duty Grizz Country. And the trail is not heavily hiked. Often it's completely deserted all day. You really do not want to be alone on a trail on Signal Mountain without letting the bears know that you're there.

I had to find some way of making noise.

Driving back to camp I heard a familiar little rattling in the back seat... my tamborim, frigideira and pandeiro, bouncing around together in my drum bag. Oh, of course!

My tamborim!

I've really been wanting some practice time on tamborim - want to get it seriously up to speed and get my stamina up. I realized that if I am really going to keep on travelling like this, I need to play little instruments. Not surdos and timbals and alfaias.

So I spent the next entire afternoon doing the spectacularly beautiful Signal Mountain hike, practicing tamborim the ENTIRE tie, while hiking. All the wildlife of Signal Mountain now know all about the distinction between the dois-e-um and tres-e-um styles, and the frigideira style as well; and they're all well acquainted with Lions Break 1 and with Junior Teixeira's Mao-Morta (Dead Hand) break from Monobloco. I am pretty sure I heard the ravens and some ground squirrels singing along with Mao-Morta after a while.

I practiced super-slow, super-duper-slow, and fast, and faster; I discovered that practicing tamborim in time with your feet, while hiking uphill at high altitude, is extremely good for making you not rush, because if you rush, you begin to pass out; I practiced in the sun and in the shade and in the rain.

A few days later I found I am for the first time EVER able to play sustained tres-e-um at 140 bpm, and my dois-e-um is suddenly up to 110bpm, and both are far cleaner than they have ever been. My annoying, hard-to-shake habit of missing the upbeat occasionally on tres-e-um is GONE. Even the frigideira pattern (played on tamb) is bipping along pretty well.

Tamborim as bear bell. I recommend it highly. It'll clean up your tamb playing like you wouldn't believe, and it'll save your life.

PS I walked directly past a blacktailed deer buck while I playing tamborim at top volume, and he didn't bat an eye, just kept on grazing. I guess he knew I was coming.