Black Fight Back, Brown ... What?
Lessons from My Anniversary
I have never gone camping before. First year of college is coming to an end, and me and my boyfriend are looking for ways to celebrate our 2-year anniversary. Despite only leaving NorCal once ever on a short vacation (my family went to see the Oregon eclipse in 2016; a core memory of mine), camping sounded really fun. My boyfriend had a very different childhood from mine; coming from a family that had not just lived in a wide variety of cities spanning the western two thirds of the nation, but also camped more times than I had ever left my own town as a child, he had enough experience to make up for my lack of it. So, the plan was set; leave Wednesday, enjoy the northern valley nature by a lake on the edge of the mountains all day Thursday, and come back Friday. Well, today it’s Thursday, and as you can imagine, the itinerary didn’t include writing to my anonymous Substack from my laptop in my bedroom… so, what happened?
After spending far too much money at Walmart and Winco getting some hardy food and overpriced supplies, we were all set. His mom takes us down to the campgrounds, consisting of dry grass and staggered, hilly terrain that is a nightmare to drive down, but even worse to walk through. After I turn off my phone to preserve its battery, the first thing I notice as we slowly meander down the cliffside is the water. Or, rather, the lack of it. Part of the appeal that led to us reserving a spot on this campground was the proximity to the lake, which still holds true if you were to look at the campground from a satellite image. The issue, however, is that from the perspective of our tent’s spot the lake was at the bottom of a second cliff edge that I perhaps could get down, but most likely would not be able to climb back up. Fun. I still have hope, though. My boyfriend begins to set the tent up and I awkwardly watch, helping hold this and that as he needs it. Eventually, he gets to a point where he can work alone, and I can’t do much until that tent is up and ready. So, I tell him I’m going to walk the perimeter of the campgrounds and look for good lake access; it’s too damn hot to sit in the tent for 2 days straight, and I don’t want my packed swimsuit and nose plugs to go unused. Off I go with nothing but my thoughts around the corner of the road, thinking it would continue down the hill. But no, instead it goes back up at an excruciating angle to walk around towards the entrance. I do a full lap, and find nothing. Now, as bored as I am, I figure it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go all the way up the cliff side to the entrance. There were signs, pictures; maybe I can find info there. Nothing better to do.
And so I begin to walk uphill on a road that only took a few minutes to drive down but took much, much longer to walk up. I notice a few empty spots with signs here and there; “Jacobs Family, RESERVED, 21st-23rd”. “Last name Elliot, RESERVED, 24th-26th”. I notice the campground host’s area, with 2 RVs and their taped-over windshields. Slightly nicer bathrooms than what we had at the bottom of the cliff. Maybe there’s even soap in there. “oh my god”, I think to myself- “this is exhausting”. I have no idea why I thought to walk all the way uphill, my legs are killing me and it’s been, like 12 minutes. But I imagine I can’t be that far, I came all this way and I can’t quit now, so I suck it up and keep trekking. Any moment now. Eventually, I find a trail with a wooden post in the ground in front of it- “Campground Entrance” written in sans serif yellow letters down the side. I must be close!!
So, I begin my hike up the path parallel to the road in the shade. I was not, in fact close. More uphill walking, watching the ground for rattlesnakes (the scariest animal I had ever encountered in the wild so far in my life). Eventually, the path ends, and with a little more walking now in the bright 4-ish PM sun in the Californian summer heat, I eventually find the entrance booth we drove by to get here. Devoid of almost any information. There was a hazy remnant of where a sign used to be depicting animal types. Across from it, rules about firearms and licensed fire-starting. Not a single thing about water access, or even a useful map. Disappointed but glad to have had a purpose for a short period, I begin to follow my path in reverse- only now do I see a sign that was only visible coming downhill saying to beware of ticks and Lyme disease on the side paths. That would have been good to know earlier. Now anxiously checking my ankles as I walk, I begin to make my way back downhill, this time in the blazing sun and away from the tick-ridden shade. More signs; “Group Camping This Way”, “Smith RESERVED 21st-22nd”. Some dry husks of trees. Concrete. Then, honking. Intentional, repeated car horns. And a dog runs into the road in front of me, only a few yards away. From the back, he kind of looks like an all-brown Saint Bernard, but really overweight for his breed. Chunky and fuzzy for a dog, and so much larger than any Saint Bernard I’d ever seen, but cute enough that I wish he’d come over and say hi. His owners must be mad at him, what a bad dog! How adorable! And then he turns around.
It’s a bear. A brown adolescent bear has just ran into the street in front of me. He doesn’t take much notice of me, just pauses for a beat to look back at the car horn noises. What the fuck do you do when you see a brown bear? I tried to remember an adage I had heard before; “If it’s black, fight back, if it’s brown…. something…. If it’s white, say goodnight”. FUCKKKK I DONT REMEMBER WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO WHEN YOU SEE A BROWN BEAR OH MY GOD. AND HE’S STANDING RIGHT THERE. I feel my pockets without taking my eye off of the bear only to remember that I didn’t bring a single thing with me. I didn’t think I would be gone for this long so I didn’t have my phone, pepper spray, a knife, not even a wallet. Not that a wallet would be of much use, since I don’t think a teenage bear has much use for my library card anyway. Okay, okay, he’s kind of small for a bear, he’d probably leave me alone. FUCK THAT MEANS HIS MOM’S PROBABLY SOMEWHERE AROUND HERE. I just kind of stand and hope he doesn’t look at me. I don’t know what I did to deserve the universe covering for my ass in the next instant, but in a moment that must have used up all my luck for the next year he miraculously never makes eye contact with me and instead continued running to the other side just barely away from my field of view. I watch a truck slowly drive out into my field of view in front of me, and I just kind of stand there as it rolls towards me. “Hey, there’s a bear here. He’s a small guy but just wanted to let you know”. Thanks.
In hindsight, I should have asked for a ride back to my campsite, but the thought didn’t cross my mind, so instead I just… continued walking downhill. I thought I had heard somewhere that you shouldn’t run near apex predators because then they’ll see you as prey, so as excruciating as it was my instinct was to slowly meander downhill and just kind of hope the bear isn’t right behind me. Eventually, after the longest 20 minutes of my life, I make it back down the hill without seeing any bears, and I finally see my boyfriend just sitting. I quickly hop down the steep road to our site and tell him everything that happened. Apparently, in the whole time it took for me to get downhill the guy in the truck had already gone around warning everyone, so he already knew. Great. He says that the man also mentioned that this specific species isn’t supposed to be here; this kind of bear migrated all the way down here from much farther up north around the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Yay for climate change. Eye roll. Because this region doesn’t have bears, we don’t have anything bear proofed. And then, once I mention the lack of water access, his conclusion is that we should have his mom drive back down and take us home.
I’m pretty stubborn sometimes, and I just did all of that walking up and down and around and we had just spent so much money and I simply did not want to go home if there was any possible way to make it through the trip. So, I sit for a second and think about what I want us to do. As I’m wishing for an idea, I hear a car horn go off up the hill; not the kind that’s done manually, but the kind that happens when something tries to break into the car. He’s nearby. FUCK. Immediately I tell him to call his mom, because now I’m scared. So, she says she’ll be on her way, and we just wait until she arrives about 40 minutes from the time of the call. But as we’re waiting, the man in the campsite right above us yells down at us about the bear being nearby. He makes himself big and is clanking things; the bear must be right by him. Eventually, the bear disappears, and we sit and wait again. That is until the bear appears again, now on the road right in front of our campsite.
Instantly, without thinking much about it, I follow my boyfriend up the terrain to the campsite of the man right above us and we watch as the bear looks from far away at us and our stuff. He tries to get into the dumpster nearby, but is just too short barely to get in. Suddenly, he turns, and runs off down the cliff in the direction of the lake. Some mallards appear near us, and waddle around. I missed seeing peaceful animals. Eventually, it appears safe enough to come back down to our original campsite, so we head down and begin packing things up. Finally, my boyfriend’s mom arrives, and we hurry to pack our things into the car. Sleeping bags, Arizona iced teas, Firewood that went unused. We close the doors and we’re off back up the hill. I never saw that bear again.
I found out later once I finally was home that what I saw was a cinnamon bear, which is a black bear species that just looks like a brown bear. I also find out the missing part of the limerick; if it’s brown, lie down. Well that would have been nice to know hours ago. Luckily, we survived the encounter. Luckily, it was a young enough bear to be fearful enough of humans. I have no idea if he had a mother nearby, but if he was small enough (for a bear) to sort of pass as a dog at first, then I imagine he wouldn’t be old enough to be venturing out on his own under normal circumstances. Despite it ruining my 2-year anniversary plans, I learned a lot from this whole encounter. I learned to never go anywhere, especially while camping, with nothing in my pockets but a piece of lint. I know now that you have to know ahead of time if a campground has bears; granted, this campground had no bears until the day we came, which is just my luck I guess, but it’s still important I suppose. On the small scale, I also learned the basics of pitching a tent and how much ice you need for a cooler.
Above all, fearing for my life for a moment made something change in my brain chemistry. A lack of energy, desire, and motivation was suddenly cured by the rush of adrenaline that occurred when I realized this could be curtains for me if I made the wrong moves. It still freaks me out just thinking of it. Before this I hadn’t cleaned my room in weeks, found it so hard to just shower and brush my teeth, just moving out of bed felt like trying to push the heaviest boulder ever made. But in that moment, as I watched the bear run into the street, I realized I really did want to live. Now I have plans to clean my room. Brushing my teeth even sounds kind of pleasant. And despite having to scale our anniversary celebration way down to Indian food and a farmer’s market crawl because of a bear, it strengthened my love and appreciation for my partner even more.
