I have been hiking very frequently as of late. Due to my schedule, which is unusual to say the least, I have learned to just go ahead on my own, having overcome the stigma of always feeling it would be better for someone else to come with me. One lesson that we all learn in life at some point, it seems, is not to rely on others in order to achieve something. Just do it. So, solo hiking became a regular routine in my life.
That said, every now and then, you just might get reminders that there are risks to everything, as well. With hiking, there are multiple risk factors. You could twist an ankle or otherwise find yourself getting injured. You could get lost if you are somewhere unfamiliar, if you are not careful. There are things in the woods that could pose a threat, including ticks – something that every hiker will encounter sooner or later. Finally, there are bears.
Now, I have had plenty of episodes by now with ticks. In fact, just last week on a hike at Wawayanda, I got a record three ticks in one day! A few days later, when I went hiking with a friend with a couple of dogs, they had a total of fifteen ticks between them, and one of them alone had ten! Ticks are a very unpleasant reality when you are a regular hiker. But you have no choice: if you want to hike, you have to deal with the risks. Everything in life comes with risks, after all.
The other big risk that I personally have encountered numerous times would be bears. Unlike ticks, they are immediately threatening and will (or should) freeze you in your tracks. Even though this is the northeast, and the bears around here are not known to be as aggressive as the grizzlies to the West, or the killer Klondikes in Alaska and northwestern Canada , or the Polar Bears of the far north. We have black bears here, and black bears are not usually threatening to people.
Of course, that does not prevent them from being controversial. It was only a few years ago that New Jersey introduced the bear hunt, and in my neck of the woods, you would be hard pressed to go driving around town without seeing some kind of a reminder of this divisive issue, if you are paying attention. There are tons of bumper stickers on other cars, or small posters on people's lawns, showing support for or against the bear hunt. It is a frequent subject of conversation in the local papers, as well, with many people voicing their concerns both for and against the bear hunt. Many people view bears as to much of a threat not to start killing them off, or perhaps, in some cases, eliminating them altogether. Since we have not gone quite that far with it (yet), there are friendly reminders not to feed the bear, both outright (which one would think should be obvious), and in a less direct manner, such as how to store discarded food and remnants, so that bears will not rummage through garbage and find food, but rather will learn to live under their own power and live under the abundance, or the lack thereof at times, of what nature in the woods provides them.
Personally, I see them as a privilege to see. It never seems to fail: when they make an appearance, people are in genuine awe. They recognize and respect the danger, since bears obviously have superior power over human beings physically. When you see a bear, you have to take precautions.
So yes, I definitely feel that they are a privilege to see, and a reminder that we actually do live amidst some wilderness. Seeing as though wilderness itself seems to be going extinct, this is no small privilege. That is why it seems so dangerous to me for people to talk so casually about killing off bears, so that they do not pose a threat any longer to "us" – that is, people. After all, they were here first, and unlike us, they have nowhere else to go. This is their natural habitat, in the woods. They belong there, and we are encroaching upon them, rather than the other way around. You don't like that, and feel that the wilderness here poses too much of a threat, to yourself or your family (particularly young ones)? Than don't buy a house in the wilderness. It's really that simple. It's the height of hypocrisy, to say nothing of the arrogance of indifference, to assume that you should be able to impose exactly what you want upon your surroundings, to make everything precisely as you want it to be.
In a perfect world, we could live within wilderness, and never feel threatened by things bigger and stronger than us. That is an unfamiliar position for us human beings to be in, since we never seem to expose ourselves to such limitations anymore in our daily lives. But this is not a perfect world, and the precious wilderness that we do have does indeed possess some potential threats to us. That is as it should be, because that is how this world works. You never know the potential unforeseen consequences of your actions, especially when you do not think them through thoroughly. If we were to kill off the bears because of the threat or inconvenience that they pose to us when we encroach on their lives, than it will be forever. Kill them all off, and indeed they are not going to come back. How long can we human beings go on thinking and acting in this way, when the evidence of our destructiveness the world over is transparent and more and more unavoidable – and almost always because we allow ourselves to believe enough in a more ideal solution that we can impose upon that world that we inhabit. How very selfish of us!
In any case, back to the bears. I have now encountered quite a few bears over the years, and that includes some times while hiking, and basically being completely exposed. If they had decided to do anything, there would have been very little indeed that I could have done in response.
It seemed that for years and years, when younger, I only heard others talk about episodes with bears that they had, and listened to them mention having caught glimpses of bears, and it seemed like I was the only local who had never actually seen one in the wild in person! So, I was really desiring the opportunity to finally see one in person, bt it never seemed to happen.
And then one morning, all of that changed. It was in 1996, if memory serves correctly. Very early in the morning, as I was on my way to work. No one else was on the road, and I saw what I took to be a rather large and odd-shaped dog crossing the road. When I passed the area it had gone off in, and saw it again from the back, it was clearly not a dog, but a bear. A small bear, probably a cub. But a bear nonetheless.
From that point on, it seemed that bears popped up periodically, and almost always at unexpected times. There was one time when I saw a bunch of people congregated en masse and watching something. I looked at where they were staring at. By a telephone pole, there was a bear that had climbed up, and was apparently nervous about coming down. There were fire trucks and police present, although I have no idea what happened the rest of the way.
At Wawayanda, I encountered some bears here and there. Sometimes, it was just glimpses from a car. But other times, it was in person. One time, it was actually a close call, and the bear, who had just crossed a stream and passed within fifty feet ahead of where I was, turned and looked directly at me. Admittedly, that was a bit unnerving.
More recently, I have seen plenty of bears when passing by in a car, but have had more encounters with them while hiking. There was one episode last year, right around this time of the year, in mid- to late May or early June, when I was stomping rather loudly down a part of the trail at Norvin Green (the Weis Ecology Center woods) near the Otterhole parking area, when I apparently startled a bear. It's funny, because your senses seem heightened when you go in nature, particularly in the woods. A tiny little chipmunk or squirrel running around on dead leaves will make enough of a racket that you will think it is a deer. A deer will make enough noise that you might think it is a bear. So, I always wondered what an actual bear would sound like, and got the opportunity on that day. Again, it was startled, and there was no mistaking the heaviness in the footsteps. It began to climb a tree instinctively, and then turned in my general direction. Had I continued down the trail, it probably would have been okay. But my natural instinct was to back up, and that meant that the bear was ahead of me, blocking my way. I ducked out of sight, and tried to wait it out. It ended up lasting an hour. I kept stealing glances, and the bear's head would pop up and look in my direction, and so I would duck back down again. Over and over. Finally, it began to move a bit, and that was the chance I had been waiting for. Picking up some sticks and a stone or two, I began to throw the stone al around me, and to rustle the leaves with my sticks, hitting branches, and speaking in a loud, yelling voice, trying to make it seem like I was a large group of people, rather than one lone bozo. It worked, too! The bear, by then some distance away, looked at me, and ran away. Right after that, I saw a much smaller bear right behind the first bear, and understood that the danger had been greater than I had originally assumed. A mother and her cub! Not a safe combination at all!
This year, however, has been on a whole new level! It is only mid-May, but I have never seen so many bears in such a short time span before! While hiking yesterday, I encountered the biggest bear that I have ever seen in the wild. It was very large and by itself, with no cubs, both of which would be strong arguments to suggest that this was a male. It was right in front of me, about maybe fifty to sixty yards (or meters) away. I did not immediately see it, but saw a tall branch from a tree moving wildly. It was raining, but there was no significant wind to speak of, so the immediate suspicion was a bear. It started walking, and for one alarming moment, I thought it was coming m way! But it veered off to the side of the trail, and I watched carefully, quietly, trying to stand still and blend in, as if I were a tree, or some other natural part of the setting. When I could not see or hear it anymore, I proceeded, with a great degree of caution, and spotted it's huge bulk surprisingly close to me. It had it's back to me, which I was grateful for, and I went through that part of the trail as silently, but as quickly, as possible. I stole a few glances back, to catch some glimpses of the huge bear, without trying to put myself at risk or stupidly make some noise or do something that would attract its’ attention.
There were a few other instances where I saw some bears from more of a distance. The first time came in March, which I think would normally have been early to see them, but given that this was such a mild winter, perhaps it was not all that surprising. I was hiking on the Silas trail, and when on top of the one cliff that kind of overlooks a stream, there were sounds like rustling through the woods by some large thing. For whatever reason, I kind of expected hunters, or teens just going through the woods. But when I looked down from the perch, there were three or four bears, who by then were in the stream, making quite a bit of noise! It was fascinating, and safer than most of the other encounters thus far, which were at closer range.
A couple of days later, I saw what seemed like a cub, racing through a valley, more or less away from me. Perhaps I startled it, or perhaps it was for some other reason that it was running. I looked all over for the mother, but she was nowhere to be seen, and nothing further came of that. I saw another cub by itself just a few weeks ago, in April, although that was while driving in the woods that I was about to hike in. It was a bit unnerving, but I went for the hike, anyway.
Then there was another time that the mother bear and it’s cubs were basically right on my path, maybe half a football field’s length from where I was. They were moving, and heading towards a point even farther off to the side, well away from the trail. I froze in place, fascinated and watching. At some point, I made a noise while shifting, because there was a plastic water bottle that I picked up along the way (to recycle later), and this made some noise. The mother stopped what she was doing and looked in my general direction, even seemed to sniff the air. But I held in place, trying to blend in, seem like a tree or some other part of the scenery. Before long, the bears moved on, and disappeared into some rocky outcroppings.
So, that’s it. Five encounters (and counting?) with bears thus far in 2012! Of course, I have been hiking more than ever before, as well, so that surely has something to do with it all. But five in the span now of perhaps slightly more than two months is far more than I ever expected, admittedly! Yes, I still feel that they are a privilege to see, but can I also admit to being a bit nervous at times about these encounters?
You never know. That’s the way the world of wilderness works, and although I live in New Jersey, the trails are, nevertheless, wilderness. Nervous, perhaps. But that does not mean I am about to seriously consider not hiking any longer. In fact, I am just about due for another hike right now, as I write this!
See you on the trails!
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