A Beary Scary Adventure

After a few days of the tourist-filled ship and port procedures, I was exhausted and overwhelmed by the droves of people packing the small Alaskan port villages. Irritated with this type of tourism, I decided to go off on my own in Skagway and do my own thing.

This seemed like a great idea and I was relieved the minute I walked into the Nature Conservatory to pick up a map of the near by hiking trails. I spoke with a representative who pointed me in the right direction, and then I was off on my hiking adventure in the mountainous terrain of Alaska.

I was blown away by the beautiful scenery and lush vegetation. The view was spectacular from portions of the hike. I could see the port and the tiny town, which has been practically untouched since the days of the gold rush.

As I made my way up the trail, I noticed that I was the only person on the trail. I found this odd, and continued my journey up the mountain, but with little extra power to my pace. After a bit of this brisk walk, which was now a rough hike upward, I began to feel anxious that I was the only person on the trail. I worried that when I did encounter another living being, it would be a bear. Bears are thick throughout Alaska, and all journey long I had been hearing amazing stories of defeat over bears by the mountain men of Alaska. These defeats, of course, were with very large guns.

So there I am, practically running up the curvy mountain path, scared out of my mind that I was going to have an encounter with a bear that I was unprepared for. I usually carry mase in my purse, but I left it in my backpack which was at my stepsister’s house in Chicago. I tried to think back to when I breezed through the pages of a Worst Case Scenario book years ago, but drew a blank as what to do when encountering a bear. A bus driver the previous day had told us that the rules for what to do when encountering a bear had changed recently, but my mind drew a blank as to what the hell you were supposed to do!

I increased my pace to a brisk jog and continued up the mountain, sweat pouring out of my pores and my fear filling the air around me. I had heard that bears could sense fear, so I tried to be as quite as possible, keeping my breathing to a minimum. Turns out that this is the absolute WRONG thing to do, as bears are likely to attack if they become startled. Making noise in actually encouraged… stupid me.

I become panicked at his point, as I am now very high up into the mountain, and still haven’t seen a glimpse of another human being. I kept telling myself that I had to be close to the trail’s end, which was at a lake, but around every twist and turn there was no sight of a lake, nor a break in the trees where sunlight would shine through.

My anxiety got the best of me and I turned around, proceeding down the mountain as fast as I possibly could without losing my footing and tumbling down. On the way down, my panic increased and I hoped that he bottom would come soon. I have never wanted to be surrounded by tourists that badly before.

On my decent down, I ran into a group of people. One woman, seeing that I am drenched in sweat and alone, asked me “Did the bears get your partner or are you traveling solo?” This mention of a bear sent me back into a fit of panic after I had just been comforted by the sight of people. I passed a couple more groups of people and contemplating turning back and going back up, this time following others in case of a bear-sighting, but decided not to out of embarrassment.

I finally made it to the bottom and slowly walked in to town, trying to cool down before running into anyone I knew. So much for that though. I immediately ran into my stepsister and her husband, who laughed at me and my beary scary adventure.

Moral of this story – don’t hike alone if you’re afraid of bears!