With some of my Alaskan friends, I’d planned a 5-day hike in Wrangel St Elias Park, which is about an 8-hour drive from Anchorage. After a spectacular flight through high mountains, the light aircraft drops our group off on the dirt airstrip. By the time we’ve unloaded our packs, the weather has deteriorated, causing us to don waterproof jackets and leggings. It’s still pouring rain in the morning, so instead of packing up camp, we decide to do day walks until the inclement conditions improve. They never do.
A couple of days later, on a slightly better morning, Liz, Mark and I decide to hike up the valley to check out a pass. There are no tracks, and the tundra is waterlogged and muddy. The mountain slopes are drier, but the streams are roaring and difficult to cross, so we alternate between the least of the evils as we track between the tundra and the lower slopes. In doing so, we waste a lot of time.
Eventually, we struggle up a steep slope between mounds of rocks and reach a misty mountain pasture. It’s stunning with green grass, gorgeous flowers and a lower mossy section crossed by crystal-clear brooks. We’re delighted, as apparently are the wild creatures. There’s bear poo all over the place, but everything is so wet, it’s impossible to guess how fresh it is.
We munch our dried rations in a huddle behind a rock, sheltered from the wind, and then decide to push on further up the pass, now only just around the corner. But the wind is against us, hurtling down from high places and after a while, my friends lose enthusiasm. But I’m unlikely to ever be here again. Stupidly determined, I want to continue, and they agree to wait behind shelter for my return.
“I won’t be long, “I promise, “I can see the top. It’s only 5 minutes off.”
At this stage, I’ve forgotten that I’m terrified of meeting a bear alone, and the bear poo in the nearby pastures has also slipped my mind. The moment Liz and Mark vanish from sight, I remember all this.
My God, what am I doing? I ask myself. My immediate answer is – Don’t be so silly, what are the chances that during the only 10 minutes I’m separated from friends, I’ll bump into a bear? On this note, I continue, only to find the top is a false pass, a lovely spot, with a glacier off to the left. The summit of the pass is now only 5 minutes up to the right.
I don’t want my friends to wait for too long, so I hurry up the wide green slopes even faster, breathing hard, head down. It doesn’t occur to me that I should be making some noise to scare potential bears off, until out of the corner of my eye, I see movement. When I look up, the enormous hairy backside of a brown bear is silhouetted on top of the pass ahead of me. It’s so big I can see the mist in the space between its hind legs. Fortunately, it’s moving fast. In the opposite direction. In situations like this, I’m not brave, though the bear is as scared of me as I am of it. Abandoning my aspiration to reach the pass, I turn and hurry back down the mountainside, singing noisy bear-go-away songs all the way.
