Running With Bears

E-mail to Local Runners:  Running With Bears.  I have been running for 28 years in Highlands, and can report that I experienced my first up-close encounter with a bear this morning.  I should explain that my training plan called for eight miles of hills today, so I decided to run to the top of Big Bearpen (yes, I realize it is called BEARpen) three times.  Fred Motz (“Give me a witness!”) saw me on three occasions during this run, and no, you can’t put it in your running log if you drive a car, Fred. 

On my second descent, just as I was approaching Betty Wong’s house on the left ((east) side of the road, I saw what looked like a large black dog running along the road and across the entrance to her driveway.  Betty was standing on her porch with a camera and asked me if I had seen the bear  “Yes,” I said.  “Which way did it go?”  I thought I heard it down in the woods below her house, rustling loudly through the rhododendron.  “There it is!” Betty said, but it was not the bear down in the woods, but another bear she was pointing at, walking along the little wall above her house, approaching her driveway, where I was standing.  I backed down the road a little, and the bear ambled out the driveway and stood in the middle of the road, looking at me.  It was the size of a full-grown German Shepherd, but filled out quite a bit, no doubt from dining on bird seed and garbage all year.  I am estimating it was about 15 meters away.  Then it started downhill toward me, so I backed up a little.  “Don’t run,” Betty yelled.  “It might chase you!”  Having already observed a bear running at full speed in Cades Cove the weekend before last, I know positively that I cannot outrun a bear, especially one only 15 meters away.  Ray McPhail might be able to, but then he would only last 100 meters.  I imagined this bear might be trying to decide whether or not I would taste as good as bird seed or garbage.  “The Mama is around here somewhere!” Betty said. 

The Mama?  Was this large animal a mere cub?  A moment or two later, the bear walked down into the woods and out of sight, where apparently its mother and/or sibling had preceded it.  I checked the distance I had run so far on my Garmin and decided this might be a good time to turn around and go uphill for my third ascent, rather than continuing downhill and bear-ward toward Chestnut Street.  As I bid farewell to Betty and passed her driveway, I suddenly heard a loud rustling in the bushes on the upper side of the road and what I can only described as a loud snort/growl like you might hear in a B-movie featuring prehistoric animals.  It was not a friendly sound, and I slowed to a walk, eased on by, and proceeded uphill, looking back over my shoulder the whole time.  I think my heart reached the target zone at about that point.  Fueled by good old adrenaline, my third ascent went faster than I had expected, but as I circled the loop at the top and headed down again, it gradually began to dawn on me that the only way down Big Bearpen, other than trying to locate the fabled Northwest Passage into Highlands Falls Country Club, was to run past the three bears I had just encountered, and particularly the one who had made the prehistoric sound.  I also realized that, although several vehicles had passed me during the past hour, none had gone down the road since I had begun back down.  I thought that perhaps an SUV, or even a white Mercedes convertible, might be a nice escort to have right about now.  As I approached the series of curves above the Wong house – and isn’t it amazing that not once so far have I pointed out that it is on the wong size of the road? – I realized that it might be a good idea to make some noise, so I began hollering out weird things, like “Yee-ha!  Go on, get outta here Bears!  Home Sapiens coming your way!”  I am sure the Police Department laughed off the calls they must have received from Bearpen residents.  Suddenly, I came around a corner, and the Mama Bear was standing in the middle of the road in front of her cubs and only a few feet in front of me, standing up and growling and charging toward me at full speed.  Well, not really, but that’s what I was thinking every time I approached a curve. 

But alas, that is the end of my Bear Report, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.  What a beautiful Fall day! – three times up the mountain, three bears along the way, nine miles in my running log.  And not once did I say “Bear with me.”