acoolsha

General entries


In the woods 3 September 04

Section: article

Categories: Travels




The first night was just after a full moon and it was so light and quiet I lay there awake for hours, like in May, this time listening to the animals with an occasional apple crashing through the branches in trees to the far right and left of me.
I was hoping for a buck deer to show up—I had spooked him from the clearing when I slept out there a few weeks ago: an image of him in mid-flight is fixed in my mind. He did come. I heard him just a few meters behind me in the trees and bushes. Sometimes a hoof would clip the dead wood with a deep thunk. I lay as still as possible, hoping he would come into the clearing in the bright moonlight, but he didn’t. Two days later I found some of his tracks and saw where he had eaten grass and it was even closer than I had thought to where I was sleeping.

Then later in the night I heard a loud but different noise in the bushes to my left: I rolled my head in that direction and to my complete shock there was an enormous brown bear, as big as a Grizzly, rising up on his haunches and sniffing deeply around him. My heart started pounding and I started thinking about how I would have to quickly and quietly get out of my blanket and sleeping bag and make a run to the tallest tree to the right, knowing he could probably catch me in a bound or two. I was trying to collect my thoughts before making the break for the trees when I realized two things:
one, that my eyes were closed, and two, that there were no longer such bears in this area.

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  • Title: In the woods