My sister was always afraid of bears. I suppose that’s not such an outrageous thing when you go backpacking in the Eastern Sierras on a regular basis. Each night before going to sleep, she and I would lie next to each other in our little turquoise tent and go over our potential areas of weakness: what if a bear attacked from the front? What if a bear jumped out of that tree stump? I’m not sure what my personal feelings on bears were during all of this; my job was to give her the impression of safety. I guess I knew the bears were out there, but they never seemed like a reality.
We were camping for the night near Waterwheel Falls, a popular site because it was close to the river. After washing down our couscous and lentil dinner with some instant cocoa (actually a pretty luxurious meal for the backcountry), we slowly made our way to bed. It gets cold in the mountains when the sun goes down; the thin atmosphere doesn’t offer much protection from the elements. Evie and I went through our typical list of bear what-ifs, then giggled about the ignorant things we’d heard some day-hikers say earlier as we went to sleep:
"Dude, should we put our food in the tent with us?"
"No way, man! I don’t want to wake up with a marmot on my chest!"
I wiggled my toes for about ten minutes to get comfortable; they always get cold in the mountains and with mummy-style sleeping bags, there’s nowhere to tuck them so they warm up. Evie whistled a little as she slept, the dry air catching in her nose. I wondered if I sounded the same when I was asleep, but ignorance is bliss.
In the middle of the night we heard some other campers making noise, aluminum pots and plates clanging. They could have been a group packing up and hiking out early, but this was too early. As I started to wake, I could make out what they were saying, “Go away, Bear! Get out of here!”
My blood stopped and a swarm of fruit flies began dancing around inside my head. Evie and I both knew this was standard protocol for getting rid of a bear in the campsite: make lots of noise to scare it off. Or maybe the idea was to annoy it enough that it walked away. Either way, we needed to reach deep and get loud. But neither of us could move. In fact, I could scarcely breathe for fear that I would attract attention and the bear would attack. We lay on our backs, neither of us making a sound, until we heard heavy steps and a rustle near the front flap of our tent. The moment was upon us to yell and make the bear move on, but still we said nothing. I didn’t even blink. I couldn’t tell if Evie was awake, but it seemed impossible she would have slept through the noise. I heard a deep snuff that sounded heavy and wet. It hung in the air as if it had crystallized, but still I was motionless. At last, the footsteps trudged away.
When it felt safe to move again, I turned towards Evie and whispered, “Are you awake?”
“Of course,” she replied.
“I can’t believe neither of us said anything!” I laughed a little to let the adrenaline out.
“I know! I was waiting for you to start yelling.”
“Really?”
“No, I was terrified.”
Not surprisingly, sleep was difficult to come by after that. I scrunched up in my sleeping bag as best I could, trying to convince myself that resting even without sleep was good enough, but eventually I sat up to check the time. It was hours later, nearly dawn. I shimmied out of my bag, put on my boots, and stepped outside into the crisp, clean air. Bending over our little gas stove, I heated some water for coffee.
I walked along the perimeter of our campsite, looking up at the stark granite ridges and clusters of stars above them. Like a bruise, the warm colors of the Milky Way stretched along the horizon. I searched for the bear’s tracks in the dirt; there were just a few I could spot. I wondered how anyone could pretend to be safe in such a wild place. Or perhaps we just needed the courage of our convictions. After all, the bear had been here, just a few feet from our tent, and yet we’d tried to pretend it wasn’t. It was stupid, but here I was: unharmed. It’s strange how even the whisper of a feeling can seem more real than something that’s right in front of you. I looked up at the swirling constellations once again, beginning to fade in the day's first light. They would stay there, hanging in the heavens, invisible until the night came again.
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