Ohians and Fifers and Mares

My title today comes from one of Jack’s Veggie Tales Movies, The Wonderful Wizard of Ha’s (a very silly spoof on Oz).  My story today is about Mares – er, rather, Bears.  Stop me if I’ve shared this with you already, but it’s one of my faves.

Our story occurs in northern California in early July of a year not so long ago, before I was the Reluctant Grownup (I still enjoyed a fair amount of freedom and penniless-ness in those days, and it was the abrupt shift from this life into Real Life Jobs that prompted the beginning, and naming, of this weblog).  I am one of a group of four trail guides leading some pre-teen children through northern California on a pretty darn amazing trip, one that includes stops at a spooky, chilly ghost town,

a tufa-filled lake that is slowly drying up,

another lake that isn’t,

a large, inaccurately named bridge,

and a kind of fantastic national park.

Our story will take place at Evergreen Campground in Yosemite, where we have just arrived for a 3-4 day stay.  To set the scene, allow me to share with you a conversation I conducted with my charges on day one, after we’d set up camp.

Me: You MUST.  Pay.  Attention.  Listen to me very carefully.  Are you listening?  Is every single one of you focused on my face?  OK.  There are BEARS in Yosemite National Park.  Lots of bears.  Zillions of bears.  You’ve already packed all of your smellables into the bear box, but I want to make absolutely sure that every single one of you put your deodorant, your shampoo, any extra food, your toothpaste, absolutely anything smelly at ALL into this box.  Yes?  Everyone?

Students: [Nod, bored of this lecture.]

Me: Are you SURE?

Students: [Highly annoyed at being treated like “children.”] YEES, Miss RG.

Me: Shall we go back through our bags one more time just to make sure?

Students: [Thoroughly disgusted.] NOOO, Miss RG.

Me: Ok.  Well then, let’s get set up for dinner.

*******

Fast forward to several hours later.  It is dark.  Nearly all of the children have elected to sleep out under the stars instead of in their tents, at the urging of their New Age crunchy granola chewing hippie trail guides.  It is awesome.  Their sleeping bags are in a circle around the campfire, and we are watching the coals die down and talking quietly.  Some kids are drifting off to sleep.  All is quiet.  Until . . . I hear a wavery, uncertain voice, calling to me from the tent area.

“Miss RG?”

One of the kids who was too freaked out to sleep under the stars with us was calling my name.  He said it again, more urgently.  He was very scared.

“Miss RG!”

“What is it, Sam?”  I asked him.  He stuttered his reply, in a fierce and terrified whisper.  “I didn’t hear you, buddy.  What’s wrong?  Say it again.”

“There’s a BEAR!” He was trying very hard to be both loud and quiet at the same time.  “It’s shaking my TENT!”

“There’s no bear, Sam.  It’s probably just a squirrel.  Go to sleep, son.  Or you can come out here and sleep near us, then you won’t get so easily spooked.”

“It’s a BEAR ITSABEAR ITSABEARBEARBEAR!!!”

My fellow guides and I rolled our eyes, sighed heavily, and extricated ourselves from our sleeping bags to hike over and reassure this kid.  As we left the glow of the last remnant of campfire and our eyes became adjusted to the dark – well, I think you can guess what it is we saw.

It was a bear.  And it was shaking a tent.  A tent with a terrified little boy inside, now shrieking like mad.

Lest ye worry unduly for the lad, let me reassure you that the bears in Yosemite are Black Bears.  Although they come in all colors, this species of bear is little more dangerous to your average camper than a squirrel would be.  Like many huge animals (see: horses), they could level a person with one powerful swipe of a limb, but generally don’t seem to know that.  Instead, they will sneak around dumpsters and campsites to steal food or anything that smells like food, while trying their level best to avoid all encounters with people.

This bear wasn’t after the kid.  He was after the kid’s contraband Oreos.

We Hu-AHHHED! and Scatted! and Getouttahere’d!, and threw stones at the bear’s nose and waved our arms.  He was pretty interested in getting in the tent, and managed to pull out and briefly maul a kid’s backpack before we finally charged at him en masse and he loped away.  The scared little boy boiled out of the tent door and leapt into his teacher-chaperone’s arms, terrified at his brush with death.

And forty-seven pre-teens, who had been watching from a safe distance with bated breath, scattered across the campsite like a scourge of locusts.  Five minutes later we had a pile about five feet high of cookies, cakes, gum, chips, and other kinds of snacks that the kids had been unwilling to give up back when we had our Very Serious Conversation about bears.  Wordlessly, we piled the loot into the bear box, ceremonially locked the door, and ushered the wide-eyed food-hoarders back into their sleeping bags, where they would lay awake for several more hours, asking if that was a bear?  What about that?  Miss RG did you hear that??  Are you sure that wasn’t a bear??  We finally had to promise to station a guard to stand on watch all night long before we could get the last, nervous few to sleep.  Once the final kid was snoring, we all had a quiet and hearty laugh at their expense, and then we settled in, too.

Ha.  I told you so.

*Addendum to the story:  The next night, all the kids slept out with us.  We’d taken a long hike, so they fell asleep pretty quickly, and we adults stayed up talking for a while.  A bear – maybe the same one, maybe not – was persistently hanging around our campfire for hours.  You could almost see him with hands in his pockets, whistling, as he tried to nonchalantly sneak up into the middle of the children.  We were getting a bit worried about this very unusual behavior – was this bear ill or something?  Why did he want to be near the flames?  We didn’t go to sleep until he’d gone and stayed out of sight for over an hour, and then we somewhat nervously pulled our sleeping bags to the outer ring of the circle and fell asleep.

The next morning, my fellow trail guide stumbled out of his sleeping bag and knocked over a pitcher full of sugary, sweet-smelling, bear-attracting grape Kool Aid.  The pitcher he’d set behind the campfire circle bench the night before and forgotten about.

Oh.