We were suppose to go to the cabin to relish the Fall colors but September arrived in a deluge of rain, day after day, three weeks steady and counting. When finally the weather report showed a brief respite from the downpour we headed to the cabin to enjoy the beauty of Autumn only to find that, except for a splotch of yellow on an occasional birch, all the leaves were gone and even though it wasn’t raining the sky was still gray. The lack of rain didn’t matter much because we were going to get wet anyway. All the accumulated water from weeks of rain was lying on a ground too saturated to swallow another drop. The rain swollen brooks and streams spilled out of their banks and since water flows to the low point, the trail, which is lower than the surrounding ground from years of footsteps pounding it down, was now a flowing brook. We took to walking along the sides of it through fern bumps and snaggles of matted dead vegetation until it proved just as easy to simply wade through the water. When we got to the hills, usually the bane of our hike, it was welcome relief being free from the wet. At the top of the second hill our rest bench was too wet to sit on so Dan spread his fleece shirt like a knight putting down his cloak, the better to keep our bottoms dry. Along the ridge the conditions were somewhat less wet and we thought we had seen the worst of it until we dropped down into the small valley for the last quarter mile of our walk. It was covered with water from all the small swollen brooks and streams, dammed up with dead vegetation, and flooding the surrounding meadow. We slogged through it and never felt more welcome when we finally got to our nice dry cabin.
The next day Dan went out to clear the dams in hopes that the now free-flowing creeks would allow the trail to drain. Later we watched light snow begin to fall. We baked cookies, set the sour dough to rise and caught up on our reading. After three inches had turned the landscape white, the snow turned to rain, not enough to wash the snow away but enough to make it wet and slippery to walk on. So when we started out four days later for our trip back to town we had to rely on our hiking poles to keep us on our feet.
Then, about a quarter mile into our hike, we came upon these.
They entered the trail where another trail merges with ours and they were clearly fresh, not more than hours old. Dan did his guide thing: “Big grizzley sow from the size of her back foot, and two cubs. Looks like yearlings. Probably heading for the creek for some late salmon.” And here we were without a bear gun having decided the bears had gone to den for the winter. Left the shutters off, left the bird feeders out, forgot Alaska is in a new time frame, swans hanging around forever, caribou refusing to herd up and head east, and now grizzly prowling the country side looking for food when the food is long gone.
As we stood there assessing the situation along came Gary following the bear tracks. He lives about two miles from our cabin and was on his way to town to replenish his supplies. He was dressed all in water shedding camo and in his hand he carried a big shotgun. “Glad I brought this along, he said, almost didn’t bother. Hope they’re not getting into my stuff.” Gary kept a lock box down by the tracks for emergency supplies which seemed impenetrable to me but you never know with grizzlies. Off he went at a fast pace in hopes of catching up with them. We decided to just amble along and give the bear family plenty of room although I don’t think we could move much faster than we were if we had to. On the way Dan read the bear tracks, pointed out where they left the trail and walked along side it because the trail was full of water and like we humans it seemed they didn’t want to get their feet wet which is funny when you think of it. They’re not exactly wearing shoes. At our half way stop we saw where one of them had sniffed around probably smelling some old granola bar or ham sandwich. In one particularly muddy section of the trail where we had laid down boards for better footing, one board had been completely upended by Mama Bear probably looking for something to eat. I felt a little sorry for them. With the berries gone there were slim pickings in the woods and they probably would have to end up eating spawned out rotting fish. Dan pointed to the baby bear butt marks, one on each side of the trail, where the cubs sat by the turned over trail board probably playing with it.
When we came to our first bridge I expected the bears to leave the trail and head down the gully but no, there were the bear tracks crossing the bridge. Next bridge I was sure they would be gone but no, the tracks crossed this bridge as well. We were on the high ridge now, heading for the hill, the bear tracks still leading us on but Dan began to notice that now and then the Sow would head in the direction of the creek and then come back to the trail. “I think she’s scoping out a way to the creek.” We came to our bench at the top of the hill and found it pulled out of its place, one leg pulled completely off. “Mischief makers”, Dan said and went about fixing it.
I sat on the newly repaired bench wondering what was worse, the grizzlies or trying to get down the slippery hills we were about to tackle. When we finally started down, leaning on the poles, side stepping the steep parts, walking off the trail in the snow-covered grass for better traction, digging in our heels, I noticed something was different . The bear tracks were gone. Dan pointed to an indentation traversing the top of the hill. “They went towards the creek,” he said. Too smart to try to walk down these hills I thought. I was happy and relieved to see them go.
It wasn’t long before we boarded the train with our bear story to tell only to find everyone else had a bear story of there own.
We were too late for the beauty of Fall but our close encounter, even if all we ever saw were tracks, gave us that special Alaska wilderness feeling. Not a bad weekend after all.