Too close for comfort: A hike to remember in bear country

Published 1:30 am Sunday, August 12, 2018

It was a cloudy afternoon in Jasper, Alberta, and I was waking up from a much-needed nap in the car.

I was at the trailhead of the Valley of the Five Lakes. My husband and kids had been gone for almost two hours, but I wasn’t worried. My husband is an experienced climber and the trail was supposed to be easy.

I took out my book about the Canadian Rockies and contemplated reading outside underneath a tree. Then I remembered the mosquitos. Instead of waiting outside like nature’s candy, I double checked that my windows were rolled up and opened my book.

Ten minutes later, I was roused from concentration by my 9-year-old pounding on the window. “Mom! Mom! Mom!” she shouted.

I unclicked the locks so she could climb inside. “You’re back,” I said, barely looking up from my book.

“We saw a bear!”

That got my attention. “What?” I thought she was joking at first. Then my teenager jumped in the car, too.

“There was a bear,” he hollered, “right there on the trail!”

“I held up my hands really big,” my daughter lifted her arms to demonstrate, “and I said, ‘Dad, back away slowly. There’s a bear.’ ”

“I was singing ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ and walked right past it,” my son explained. “And then, when Dad called out that there was a bear, I was like — frick!”

“Wait.” I squeezed my eyes shut trying to picture it. “You mean the bear separated your group?”

“Yeah,” my daughter said. “And it was eating ants on a log.”

My husband climbed into the driver’s seat. “Every bear stereotype, right there in front of us. It was literally eating ants off a log.”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“We backed away as far as we could,” said my husband, “and waited the bear out. Eventually it wandered off into the woods.” He shook his head. “We were way too close for comfort.”

“Ten bus lengths. You’re supposed to be at least 10 bus length’s away from a bear.” My daughter was so pumped with adrenaline that she kept repeating herself. “But we were definitely not 10 bus lengths away.”

“I knew we should have brought bear spray,” I said, feeling horrible. It was hard not to imagine the worst that could have happened. “Nobody thought to bring the bear bells with you?”

“You mean the ‘dinner bells?’ ” My husband looked at me like I was clueless. “I don’t think they would have helped. We were plenty loud enough. That bear knew we were coming, but it was big enough not to care.”

“I had just gotten to 39 bottles of beer on the wall,” my son said. “I was singing at the top of my lungs.”

My husband started the car. “So,” he asked, “how was your nap?”

I gave him a guilty smile. “Uneventful.”

Jennifer Bardsley is author of the books “Genesis Girl” and “Damaged Goods.” Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, on Twitter @jennbardsley or on Facebook as The YA Gal.