Very Aware Indeed

 If you remember this post you know what I am aware about!

July 1, 2, 3 were spent on a 25 mile backpacking excursion with these lovely ladies.  Catherine, Erin and myself set out from Cooper Lake to do the Russian River traverse from Upper Russian Lake to Lower Russian Lake.  This is prime bear country as the Russian River is home to some major salmon runs which the bears thrive and depend on.

So we were prepared.  We had our bear mace and our road flares (to chase after the bears with or use as a weapon if necessary). 

We went 12.5 miles on the trail to the Aspen Flats Public Use Cabin.  (see below)

It was a great hike.  We saw a momma and baby moose from a safe distance across a ravine,

we saw amazing scenery

And we saw lots of this:

Bear Scat, which is a fancy word for poop.  But we saw bigger, fresher piles all along the way.

And we saw even bigger prints than the one pictured here below.  In fact the last 3 miles of our first day to the cabin, we were following Grandpa Bear sized paw prints.  We were also following them in brush as tall as my head or taller.  We could not see anything ahead of us and just made as much noise as we could so we didn't surprise anything on the trail.  The foliage was so thick we could have used a machete!

 It took us about 6 hours to travel the 12.5 miles to the cabin with our 40 pound packs.  We were tired but happy with ourselves and our accomplishment.   This was the farthest any of us had gone with a pack before.

We had a great night in the cabin! We were right on the Russian River.

See, here is the Russian River where we filtered our water for the next day and brushed our teeth.  The mosquitoes quite liked it here too.  We had lots of bug spray and an outhouse to keep certain nether regions fairly protected from too many bites!

The next day we only had to do about 4 miles to our next campsite.  This was one of the designated back country tent sites along the trail that have bear lockers for our food to be kept in. But day 2 was things got really interesting.

First the bugs.  We looked like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown except the cloud around us was about our head and it was made up of mosquitoes, not dirt.  If you look closely you can count 15 mosquitoes on this leg alone.

This is my "ready to rob a convenient store look," or rather, "how to keep bugs out of my mouth and nose look." The bugs kept us at a brisk pace.  We just kept thinking it had to get better.

 This is my favorite shot of some of the wildflowers we saw on Day 2.  

In fact the pace was so brisk we missed our camping turn off and ended up almost to where we were supposed to meet JaDee on day 3. We lunched at the head of the Russian River falls, where there were virtually no bugs and decided to go back to see where we missed our camp site. We figured we only had a mile or two to head back up the trail, we would pitch our tent and enjoy the peace of the mountains for a while.

At this leg of the trail it was wider, the bugs were gone, and we were just commenting on how lucky we were to have not seen a bear along the way!  I mean look at all the scat, prints and other signs we had seen, and yet no bear.

Suddenly Erin looks up and says,"There's the bear."

Sure enough.  About 30 feet we see the biggest Grizzly I have ever seen.  Its raw power brought its massive form up onto the trail from the almost vertical drop off along side the trail with virtually no effort at all.  His shoulder was head height on me.  His eyes looked square into ours. We immediately raised our arms and waved while saying the phrase that Ethan taught me in that funny moment last year: "Hey, Bear! Hey Bear!"

He stood still for a second.  Regarded us with a cool gaze and took in the 2 cans of bear mace at the ready. And as we backed up, arms high, voices calm but assured, he turned with what seemed like a shrug, and sauntered off down the trail away from us.

At that point I fumbled for the camera around my neck, but his hind end disappeared in the brush and before I could get it into focus he was gone.

Those 30-60 seconds are forever emblazoned in my mind even if I didn't get the picture.
And then we were like, Whoa!  Did that really happen?  It seemed so surreal. Did we really truly have a bear encounter? Did I really just use the bear aware skills, that I laughed at last year, to quite possible save my life?  I did! And oh was I jazzed.  Adrenaline coursed through us as we chattered like magpies to replay what we all did.  To compare notes with what we all noticed, how we all felt, how amazed we were at the shear size of him.

We decided NOT to follow the bear down the trail in search of a tent site and headed all the way out to the campground at the trail head.  Unfortunately 4th of July weekend meant the that all the regular sites were full.  We went out along the highway and were going to tent it on the side of the road when we saw the VACANCY sign of Gwins Lodge ahead of us.  After 25 miles and a bear encounter, we felt we deserved a bed and a shower to cap off the trip.

Day 3 we checked out and walked the 2 miles back to the spot we were meeting JaDee.  He and the kids had their own adventures while I was gone (I will hopefully get to those in a day or two).  We squished in the truck and headed back to our starting point to claim Catherine's car.

Catherine, Erin, and me at the end of the journey!

I came home with 2 amazing blisters on the balls of my feet and 15 mosquito bites just on the skin below my knees from when I changed into my sandals to cross a river on Day 2 (I haven't bothered to count the rest of them all over the rest of my body). I feel refreshed and renewed in spite of the at times grueling (and frightening) conditions we were in. My body did an amazing job taking care of me on this trip.  It moved, hefted, traversed and persevered through pain and adversity to complete this trek.

I know I can do hard things

Bring it.