My grizz

I was hiking around Jenny Lake (Grand Teton National Park) the other day. I hadn't really planned it, just was driving down that magnificient, stunning, most-beautiful-in-the-world drive along the feet of the great Tetons range, when I saw the sign to the Jenny Lake pull out and I suddenly thought: I've never been up to Inspiration Point yet.

So I hiked the whole way around, eight miles; a pretty easy flat hike most of the way, with one grueling uphill to the stunning Inspiration Point (where I met the fattest, tamest, golden-mantled ground squirrel I've ever had the pleasure to meet. His good luck that his territory is smack at the lunch spot of the most-hiked hike in all of Grand Teton National Park.) There were lots of other hikers around at first; but then it got late (I'd been netting for birds since 5:30am and hadn't started on the hike till 3pm. Still plent of daylight, but it was definitely getting darker and duskier. Rainclouds moved in; and a tremendous wind picked up; and all the other hikers scurried for the Jenny Lake boat that would whisk them to the parking lot back on the other side of the lake. But I was all set for rain, and it was only a couple miles on a very easy trail back, so I kept on walking.

The wind was whooshing, a few fat raindrops were pelting down, the tree leaves were rattling overhead, when I stepped around a corner and heard a HNFF! I looked up; there was a bear, about fifteen feet away. Its head was down in a bush. It was furiously digging; probably going after a ground squirrel or something. I thought "Wow, cool, a black bear! And what a pretty one too; that lovely brown color with those pretty blond streaks all over its big humped shoulder..... oh, it's a grizz."

I used to work in Alaska and so I've dealt some with working in grizzly and polar bear country. Grizz are usually fairly sensible. (Polar bears scare the living shit out of me, on the other hand). I never have worried about grizz much because 99% of the time, if they hear you coming, they will get the hell out of your way and be long gone and you will never even know they were there. There are currently a MILLION tourists going through the Tetons and Yellowstone every month, and there are several thousand grizzlies living in the area who must see tourists every single day, and there have been hardly any "incidents". Which means, 99.99% of the time, the grizzly quietly goes the other way. Most bear "incidents" occur when a bear is taken by surprise by a lone, quiet hiker that the bear didn't know was there till the hiker got too close and the bear panicked.

However, there's always that 0.01%. Two days before, a female grizzly had gone on a rampage near Yellowstone and had attacked two people and killed and eaten a third, a man from Michigan camping by himself. The next day the "grizzly response team" caught and euthanized that bear (with a trap baited, creepily enough, with "pieces of the dead man's tent"), even going so far as to confirm, with DNA, that it was the same bear that had killed the man.

So usually people carry a bear bell to let the bear know they're there; and pepper spray in case it charges. I like bear bells; I'd rather keep the bear from charging than hope the pepper spray will work during a charge. (Some bears continue the charge despite the pepper spray.) Of course I had neither, that day; but that's why I'd chosen the Jenny Lake hike, it's the single most highly travelled hike in the whole park and bears usually avoid hikes that are that well travelled.

I stood there and watched the huuuuuuge bear ripping up the ground, with its head down in the bush, what seemed inches away from me, with the wind howling overhead and the rain pelting down, and the wind in my face, blowing my scent away from the bear, and I realized: It doesn't know I'm here. I'm about to take it by surprise.

A very stupid part of my brain said "Ooo, a bear! Get out your camera and take a picture!"

Another stupid brain part said: "You got this close without it minding; just walk right on past; I bet it won't mind."

A much smarter and very ancient module of my brain, one that had long been sleeping, suddenly spin up into high overdrive. It lit up brightly and said: "THIS IS THE ANCIENT ENEMY. THIS IS THE OLDEST GOD. BACK UP SLOWLY, NOW. DO NOT GET OUT YOUR CAMERA. DO NOT TRY TO WALK PAST. BACK UP SLOWLY."

I backed up slowly and as dead quiet as I could. I backed around a turn. I backed up some more. I backed around another turn. I backed up a little more. I backed up till I was perched right above icy Jenny Lake, figuring I could maybe jump into the lake if the grizz started galloping toward me.

Then I started singing the Hey Bear Song. All the people around here know this song. The lyrics go: "Hey Bear! I'm here! I just want to go past, I don't want any trouble! Hey Bear! I'm just gonna walk on by, okay?" (I've literally heard people sing it. My favorite version, which I heard a guy singing in the dead of night in the middle of Signal Mountain: "I'm a HU-man, I'm a HU-man, I'm a HU-man, you're a BEAR! I gotta BEER, I gotta BEER, and you DON'T, cause you're a BEAR!")

It was six miles back; too far to get by dark; I couldn't go back that way. So I inched forward, and further forward, and around the critical turn:

There was the dug-up ground squirrel hole.

No bear.

Wind sighing overhead. Rain pelting down.

Nobody in sight.

99.99% of the time, if the bear knows you're there, it just sneaks away.