RAGS TO WILDERNESS

While hiking alongside Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone Park, I stopped to fill up my water bottles from a cold mountain spring that froze my fingers while doing so. Standing up to sling my pack to my shoulders, I found myself less than 50 feet away from the largest grizzly I have seen in the lower Forty-eight. After being alone for two weeks on the trail I caught myself staring at the bear thinking which one of us is going to get off the trail so the other can pass. Then reality hit me, “Hey Dave there is a grizzly bear in front of you and you better get the hell out of its way
because it is coming straight at you.” This is exactly what I did. I jumped onto a deadfall of Lodgepole pine while leaving my pack on the trail in the hope of putting the bears attention on food that was inside, instead of on me. This is when it hit me that my bear spray was still fastened to the side of my pack. Common sense told me that if I was to have a chance of surviving, I needed to retrieve the bear spray.

When this was all taking place I turned my phone on so I could film the bear attacking me so my wife could watch how I died. Funny how crazy thoughts can pop into your mind at a time like this. With phone going through the sequence of still coming on, I jumped the eight feet or so from the log to my pack and while turning it over to retrieve the bear spray is when huge feet with long claws plopped down in the dust inches away from my hands. I looked up at the head of the bear as he walked by; the sun gave off a halo of gold around his massive head. I swear I could see him watching me with his peripheral vision. It was like he couldn’t care less if I was there or not. It happened so fast that all I could do was stand there in the trail and watch the bears butt disappear around the corner.