The Grizzly

Stisch was especially eager to get out in the wilderness since he had spent 5 vacation days already and had nothing to show for it. At least I’d been out on a couple day trips with Tim and by myself. So we poured over the maps again and found a very promising wilderness trail a short drive away.

The map indicated a parking area at the trail head just off a highway. The trail followed a fairly large river up a rugged mountain valley ending 13 miles from the parking lot at a glacier with a small lake at the bottom of the glacier. The map showed small streams flowing into the river from either side of the valley and named a few water falls along these streams. Numerous mountain peaks were also named with their summit altitude labeled. Stisch and I both saw promise in the meandering topographical lines on the map, promises of spectacular views in every direction along the entire hike.

There were also designated camping areas at several points along the trail, but when we called we discovered they were all reserved. The backcountry camping permits were even taken so we could not camp overnight anywhere. If we wanted to do this hike we’d have to make it to the glacier and back to the trail head in one day—26 miles of rugged Alaskan hiking with all our food, water, and gear in our backpacks.

Hiking with day packs and leaving our tent and sleeping bags behind would reduce our load, but we’d still have heavy day packs. I was a serious hobby photographer at this time with over 5 pounds of cameras and lenses left after reducing to what I considered my minimum equipment. Then there was our essential safety gear: knife, matches, candle, compass, map, rain ponchos, first aid kit, water purification tablets, etc. We had food for lunch and dinner and a couple water bottles for each of us, and clothing to stay warm in the cold Alaskan August morning. We each ended up with over 20 pounds to carry. That’s not a lot for a simple day hike, but 26 miles is a marathon. Even without backpacks that’s a long hike and the rugged terrain we knew we’d be covering would surely wear us down.

But Stisch and I had once climbed from Manitou Springs to the summit of Pike’s Peak and back down on a Saturday. It was an exhausting, but very rewarding adventure. We were thinking this would be similar, but even better—maybe even more exhausting, but much more rewarding too. We knew we had the strength and stamina to pull of an extremely grueling hike so we decided to go for it.

It took a little longer to drive to the trailhead than we’d anticipated, but we had an early start so the sun was still low on the horizon as we eagerly set out on the trail. In early August this part of Alaska only had a few hours of darkness. Before sunrise and after sunset the hazy light of dusk hung in the air for a long time. Even late before sunset and early after sun rise the sun seemed to linger near the horizon as if that was a comfortable position that it was loath to leave. That was all right with me because low sun angles are pretty good for photography, and immediately as we started our hike Stisch and I were awed by the majestic landscape surrounding us. I would expose more film this day than I ever had in a single day by far.

The rugged peaks and waterfalls were even more impressive than I’d expected, but the first surprise for me was the lush density of the vegetation near the river. We where hiking through what I would classify as temperate rainforest. Warm, moist air from the Pacific Ocean moving up this mountainous valley sheds generous gifts of precipitation watering a dense garden of trees, brush, and ground vegetation. The abundant precipitation would have been enough to feed a healthy river, but this river was swollen bluish gray from glacial melt also, so it tumbled vigorously over its gravelly bed and around scattered boulders and fallen trees. As Stisch and I navigated the twisting path through this dense undergrowth in the shadow of towering fir and spruce trees I considered quietly that, as much as I hoped to see a Grizzly Bear, I wouldn’t want to stumble on one here.

I knew Grizzly Bears were common in Alaska. I’d never seen one in the wild before so the possibility of encountering one thrilled me. I had read a few articles about bear attacks and how to be safe in grizzly wilderness areas, so I knew that the bears were shy and tried to avoid people. If you made enough noise you’d never get close to one, and getting close to one is really the only time you need to worry.

Most attack victims were photographers intentionally sneaking closer for a better photograph, but occasionally a hiker would get attacked if they surprised a bear in an area of poor visibility, like the thick underbrush Stisch and I were hiking in at this moment. So I started talking.

Keeping a conversation going presents a real challenge for me. I’m normally a very quite, reflective guy, lost in my thoughts. I enjoy the hidden world of ideas in my mind and never get bored there, but talking tends to slow my brain down. Even though I enjoy people, it’s in my nature to withdraw into myself mentally so it takes a lot of effort for me to stay engaged in conversation.

I’ve gotten a lot better with age. At my 25 year high school reunion the classmate sitting next to me during dinner turned to me and said, “Roger, you’ve really changed. In the past half hour you’ve said more to me than you did in all the years we went to school together!” He wasn’t exaggerating. I was extremely shy in grade school and most of high school. I started to come out of my shell a little my senior year, and grew a lot socially at the USAF Academy, but as a young Lieutenant I still had difficulty keeping most conversations going for more than a few minutes.

But Stisch was different. He was so outgoing, energetic, and full of enthusiasm that I hardly had to do anything to keep the conversation going. Stisch could talk a stream of consciousness flowing so rapidly from one thought to the next I had to be quick to insert my own thoughts. I’ve known plenty of people like this and usually I just let them ramble until they run out of steam or I can find an excuse to escape. Something was different about Stisch. We clicked unlike any other friend I’ve ever had. We shared enough common interests and values that conversing with him actually stimulated ideas in my mind and made me want to share them instead of withdrawing in my private world.

My withdrawn, quiet personality seemed to be completely opposite of the boisterousness overflowing from Stisch everywhere he went. People openly questioned how we could be such good friends and we couldn’t explain it. In spite of our outward differences, we enjoyed each other’s company and easily understood each other. It would be a couple decades later, after I gained some expertise in Myers-Briggs personality types, that I would figure out that Stisch and I were actually the same personality type except for his clear preference to extroversion and mine to introversion. (For readers familiar with the MBTI, I’m an INFP and Stisch is an ENFP.)

So here we are, two eager hikers excited about what the day holds for us, quick-stepping our way through thick, grizzly infested, Alaskan temperate rainforest, rambling on and on about the beauty of what we’re seeing, our homes in Florida and Spain, our jobs launching satellites at Cape Canaveral and flying F-16s from Madrid, our spiritual walks with God, memories of good times in Colorado, and a thousand other subjects. As you can imagine, we weren’t seeing much wildlife. Every creature of the forest could hear us coming a mile a way and gave us wide birth, except the mosquitoes, some birds and an occasional squirrel.

Even in the absence of wildlife, the scenery of this rugged landscape was breathtaking. Every half mile or so the trail would swing up the side of the valley revealing a majestic panorama of sharp mountain peaks, narrow waterfalls, the dark conifer forest cut with a sparkling rippled stream, and sky as blue as it gets. Stisch and I were experiencing God’s creation unlike we’d ever seen it before and the day was just beginning!

We hiked for hours without a hint of energy draining from our bodies. Every where I looked I saw beauty too glorious to pass without capturing the image on the film in my Cannon AE1 camera. I forgot about bears and the mountains seemed to be aweing Stisch into silence. Our conversations grew short and sporadic. As we approached the small lake at the base of the glacier we noticed a beaver swimming across the otherwise mirror smooth surface. We just stood and watched the beaver work for a long while, feeling like we would be a rude, unnatural intrusion into the wild rhythm of nature if we continued. But the glacier just beyond the lake was calling us, and that call soon pulled us on up the trail. The beaver disappeared into the water and we never saw it again, but it wouldn’t be the last or most exciting wild animal we’d see this day.

For now, the emerging details of the glacier captivated our attention. It was deeply sliced with dark blue crevasses and brilliant white where the sun reflected from its cold, damp exterior. It was also streaked with black smudges where the powerful mound of ice had crushed the rocky mountainside into dust, sand and gravel, lifting it and carrying it down the valley. Between the beaver’s lake and the glacier lay a huge wasteland of gravel and sand piled randomly across the bottom of the glacier. It reminded us of what the landscape might look like if a high megaton thermonuclear bomb had exploded here just below the surface shattering the rock within a quarter mile radius of ground zero. This barren gravel field was actually a testimony to the powerful forces of nature at work and the fact that the glacier had been melting for a few years to expose land that had been covered in ice for millennia.

Traversing this glacial ground zero actually slowed our progress because the piles of gravel were steep and loose. Rocks constantly shifted and slipped as we strained to climb over and around the mounds. We were also feeling the drain of walking up hill with backpacks for 13 brisk miles. The immense glacier looked deceptively closer than it really was, so what we initially thought would be a couple minutes of easy walking started to feel like an endless gravel treadmill. We persisted, though, and finally found the ice towering over our heads as we reached out to touch its gray-blue hue with our bare hands.

This encounter was quite different from the first glacier I’d touched a couple days earlier. Instead of approaching it from the side and walking over the line with no real way of knowing how much ice lay under my feet, this time I came from below to the bottom edge with the feeling that it could all roll over the top of me. There were even dark tunnels extending under the glacier with melt water flowing out. The ice looming over our heads fractured into gigantic geometric shapes making me feel like a small grain of sand among the crystals of a colossal geode.

After exploring the leading edge of the glacier for about half an hour Sticsh and I were both feeling compelled to climb up into some of the mammoth fractures and actually get up inside the glacier. We were also hesitant because it didn’t quite seem safe and we had no experience, training, or equipment for ice climbing. Since it was past noon and we were both hungry we decided to eat some lunch.

I don’t remember what we ate for lunch that day, but I do remember thoroughly enjoying it. We usually packed simple lunches for our day hikes; fresh vegetables and fruit, granola bars, sandwiches, bagels, trail mix, etc. When you’ve hiked 13 miles over rugged mountains in half a day even the simplest lunch can seem like a gourmet feast.

The short rest and calorie recharge pumped me with energy and an eagerness to explore the glacier. I was no longer hesitant over the danger in the glacier, only wary enough to be careful. When Stisch and I investigated the caves under the glacier we found them too small, dark, and wet to crawl more than a few feet into. Most of the crevasses were too steep and slippery to climb in, but we did find a few with shallow enough inclines for climbing without crampons. They were still quite slippery so we didn’t go far, just far enough to take some cool pictures.

The glacier was so fascinating that we struggled to pull ourselves away, but we knew we had a long hike back to the trailhead. A couple hours had flown by since we first touched the glacier, but it seemed very brief. As we set out across the wasteland of gravel mounds deposited by the receding glacier our hearts were heavy with the awareness that we were leaving behind something wonderful which we had only briefly encountered. On top of that heaviness, within minutes our bodies were protesting against the effort of climbing over all those piles of gravel. Stisch and I felt weary with the knowledge that we were already feeling exhausted and we had 13 miles of rugged mountain hiking to go. Our backpacks were lighter from all the food and water we’d consumed so far, but in this tortuous gravel it didn’t seem to mater.

When we finally reached the small lake we paused to rest and watch for the beaver, but it had vanished. The afternoon was vanishing too, so we set out again, dissatisfied at not seeing the beaver and that our bodies didn’t feel rested at all, just stiff and tired. More than 12 miles remained to go.

For the next couple hours we trudged down the river valley following the same path that ascended the valley wall then plunged down into the dense temperate rain forest, back and forth, over and over. In spite of our constant struggle with exhaustion it wasn’t actually as dreary or monotonous as you may think. We’d been over this path before going up the valley, but the view was still spectacular and a little bit new as the sun angle had changed and we were facing the opposite direction. I wasn’t taking as many pictures as I had on the way up and we had wearied of conversation so we walked quietly, but our spirits hadn’t wearied too much. We felt good inside about all we’d experienced that day and were still enjoying the present even though our bodies were worn out.

With 6 or 7 miles to go on our way back to the trailhead parking lot we were plodding along in this state of happy exhaustion on one of the trails diversions up the side of the valley. We’d rounded the high point near a stunning water fall and it felt good to be heading down hill again, back toward the river flanked by dense forest, when it happened—one of those moments that impressed detailed memories into my brain forever. I was admiring a large, light-brown boulder at least 10 foot high on the right side of the trail when Stisch said, “Roger, look at the moose in the river!”

I looked down at the river and instantly knew it wasn’t a moose my friend was looking at. I think he realized it about the same time I did. I responded, “Stisch, that’s no moose. It’s a grizzly bear.” It was a big one, at least 300 yards away, but near enough to send our adrenaline levels spiking.

We stood in silence admiring the majestic creature. I don’t know if it was a few minutes or less than one minute because time seemed to be suspended. The bear was slowly making its way across the river toward us. I wondered if it was looking for fish or just crossing the river, but foremost in my mind was the fact that it was heading our way.

In an instant I reviewed the instructions I’d read about grizzly bear encounters. The first response if you encounter one that hasn’t seen you is to go the opposite direction and avoid contact. If we continued down our trail we’d be walking directly at it into thick brush with poor visibility—the worst possible conditions to encounter a bear. I didn’t want to turn back and hike further from our destination because we were so tired. The trail behind us looped back down into the forest anyway so I wasn’t sure that would help. I considered going off trail and hiking toward the trailhead along the wall of the valley, up high out of the forest even though that was against the rules, but the mountains were so steep that that would be dangerous too.

So my mind jumped to the second best response when confronted with a bear that hasn’t seen you—make yourself known to the bear. I read several articles that suggested making noise—yelling, banging pans together, whistling, etc. Some suggested holding your hands up high to make yourself look big and intimidating. These articles cited hundreds of real encounters where this technique worked, claiming that even 1500 pound grizzly bears were afraid of people and would run away when confronted. They offered no instances of the technique failing so I guess if it ever failed the person using it didn’t live to testify of the failure.

Favoring the yelling approach I cupped my hands to my mouth and bellowed, “Hay bear!”

The bear stopped, perked up his ears, and held his head high and still.

I shouted again, “Hay bear, go away!”

Stisch was staring at me as if I’d totally lost my mind. He might have been wondering if he could out run me when the bear attacked, but he hadn’t jettisoned his back-pack yet.

The grizzly still couldn’t see us, but he stood up on his hind legs looking around. It was just like I’d seen bears do in the movies except he didn’t roar or growl. He stood very silently with his ears perked up looking around for the source of that foreign sound. And he looked gigantic. Big bears look even bigger when they stand tall on two legs. I can testify to that from personal experience now.

I hadn’t been waiving my hands overhead because I didn’t feel like I could possibly look intimidating to this giant in spite of what the articles said, but now I realized I needed to do something to help the grizzly see me. I climbed on top of the boulder next to the trail. Spiderman couldn’t have scaled that 10 foot boulder more quickly than I did in my adrenalin charged state even though I was still wearing my back-pack. All feelings of exhaustion had disappeared.

From the top of the boulder I resumed my shouting while jumping up and down waiving my arms. Someone observing from a distance would have wondered, “Why is that crazy guy doing jumping jacks on top of a boulder?” Stisch still stood in stunned silence because he hadn’t read the articles I’d read.

But now the moment of truth had arrived. The immense grizzly had seen me and I felt like we’d actually made eye contact. It was only for an instant, but making eye contact with a creature this large and powerful and awesome and handsome and so much more is something that leaves a permanent impression. A surprising bit of the impression I carry is that the bear seemed intelligent.

The eye contact ended as abruptly as it started with the bear spinning and leaping into a full-forced run. The grizzly fled into the thick forest on the opposite side of the river splashing water at least 20 feet to both sides as it ran.

I stood on my boulder, heart pounding, sensing power and victory as if I’d won a fight, along with relief that what I’d read actually worked. I also held a sense of pleasure at experiencing something special, a gift from the creator of all creatures.

I turned to my greatest friend, Stisch, and I can still remember the expression on his face beaming with his characteristic toothy grin. In his eyes I saw the same sense of relief and pleasure that I felt, but I also saw a hint of admiration. His vocal cords were finally released, but I don’t remember what he said because this is where the adrenalin heightened detailed memory recall ends. He probably said something like, “Roger Deemer, you’re the craziest!” He was fond of telling me, “Roger Deemer, you’re the greatest!” but at this moment crazy seems like a more appropriate adjective.

A few minutes later we entered the forest with a heightened awareness of the presence of grizzly bears and the need to make some noise so we wouldn’t startle one. We tried picking up the steady stream of conversation that flowed throughout morning hike up this section of trail, be we were just too tired to sustain it. We tried singing some hard hitting, fast tempo songs we both loved by our favorite singers like Keith Green, Phil Keaggy, and Petra, but we just didn’t have the energy for that either. Neither of us had the vocal skills to sing their songs anyway. We ended up singing Maranatha style praise songs that we remembered from “His” Bible Study when we were cadets at the USAF Academy. I’m sure we were off key, but the tunes and lyrics were simple enough that we could get through them in our current state of exhaustion.

By now our bodies were not only telling us they’d had enough physical activity but also that it was about bed time. The early August Alaskan sun didn’t set until after 10:00, and the twilight lasted until after midnight. It was during this twilight time that I remember stumbling along singing praise songs. The songs were simple, but spiritually uplifting so we felt our energy renewed as we sang.

At first we jumped quickly from song to song as the melodies stimulated our memories of more songs. We’d chat a little after each song, reminiscing about events and people from that special time in our lives, and then one of us would throw out the name of another song and launch into it. Before an hour had passed we were having trouble thinking of new songs so we repeated a few favorites just to keep the bears informed of our presence, but singing failed to lift our energy as it had earlier. Silent pauses between songs grew longer as we struggled through physical and mental weariness to think. This marathon hike had pushed us beyond any previous personal record of hiking perseverance by a wide margin. Even our one day ascent and return on Pike’s Peak didn’t come close.

I remember seeing shadows of tents a short distance from the trail and realizing we were passing one of those designated camping areas that was too full for us to stay at. I wondered if we’d awakened any slumbering back-packers and what they might be thinking about the two loony hikers singing praise songs in the night.

Eventually we gave up singing. We were so tired just picking our feet up to keep stepping down the path required all the effort we could muster. The fear of bear attack failed to move us to sing or even carry on a conversation.

I’ve no idea how long we stumbled along in this condition, but the faint dusk overhead barely penetrated the through the dense forest to the ground. We could just make out the trail and might have stumbled within a few feet of a bear without ever seeing it. When we finally emerged from the forest to see the cars parked at the trailhead the twilight had faded enough to see quite a few stars.

It felt surreal to think our endless adventure was so instantly over. As I relaxed into the car seat I remember thinking what a glorious day we’d had—a life time standout. Stisch must have driven us back, because I have no memory of the drive to Tim’s house, or getting ready for bed; nothing. I’m sure I slept about as soundly as a human can possibly sleep. If I dreamed of mountains, or glaciers, or grizzly bears, or exhaustion, or anything else, the dreams were lost to neurological oblivion by the time I woke the next morning.