On Bears

I really like to hike. I love the mountains, I love being in the outdoors, in the woods or out in the desert. I love the feeling of being outside, I love the weight of a bunch of gear strapped to my back and a trail beneath my feet.

However, despite how much I love the solitude and how much I wish to maintain that aura of the rugged, independent explorer ready to handle any obstacle nature throws in my path, I do have a dark, shameful secretly.

I am absolutely terrified of bears.

Now, perhaps I should be clear; I'm terrified of the idea of bears. The truth is, of course, that anybody would be distressed to come face to face with an angry grizzly. That's not a question of phobia or courage. Unless you're insane, you have to respect that in a close-quarters situation, bears win. However, the same is true of many things. I would be afraid of lava if I was standing above a volcano about to erupt, but I don't consider myself to have some sort of lava-phobia, just a healthy respect for the potentially destructive nature inherently implied by magma.

Bears, though. I am forever caught between two conflicting thoughts about this concern, which always seems to strike me when I'm out on some remote mountain path, typically when I'm cooking, or sleeping, or getting up in the middle of the night to answer a call of nature. The thought usually starts with something like, "man, it would really suck to meet a bear right now," which usually provokes that sort of mild hysteria humor as it implies that there exists a time in a person's life when bear meeting would be an acceptable or even preferable occurrence?

Usually, I try to console myself by thinking of various statistics, like how out of the past hundred years, more people get killed by tuna fish than by bears, or something. There's all kinds of useful statistics out there to make you feel better. I mean, if you really think about it in the right statistical perspective, I represent a far greater danger to myself than a bear does, given that I'm far more likely to die via suicide than by bear mauling.

There's a problem with playing the statistical reassurance game, and that's the fact that a "low probability" of being eaten by a bear is not the same thing as "there is zero chance you will be eaten by a bear." The mind can imagine being the really unlikely guy that has his number come up that day, because, after all, it has to happen to somebody at some point.

The other thing that fuels my (largely) irrational concern about bears is the fact the perception of helpless should a bear decide to, in the lexicon of today's youth, "get all up in your grill." I mean, you can try to scare a bear off, or play dead, or try to outrun your hiking partner, since you won't outrun the bear. But every tip seems to carry with it a caveat that "well, it might just make the bear eat you more," so that really, the best solution anyway has is to just shrug. Hell, I even read a warning tip that, should you use bear mace, be sure to only spray it directly at the bear, as, rather than act like a bear repellent, it actually smells like the ursine equivalent of nachos.

Well, that's reassuring.

So, while I don't let this fear of bears keep me from doing what I enjoy, there's always a small, nervous little part inside my reptile brain that's convinced I'm going to die whenever I go outside. I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that I really don't want to get eaten. Perhaps it's morbid to consider all your options for a demise, but to me, being food for something just seems like a really ignominious ending. I'd much rather prefer something less in the "gutwrenching, visceral horror" category and more in the... hmm. I'll have to get back to you on what the other category should be.

Material for another blog post, perhaps.