My husband, Dan, and I recently got home from a two-week road trip in Washington. We spent the last few days of our vacation in Leavenworth where we, of course, did some mountain biking, and I, of course, turned around halfway through one of the trails due to my well-documented acrophobia.
This isn't a post about my fear of heights for once. It's about my second almost-run-in with a bear.
You might remember Dan and I almost got eaten by a bear during our mountain biking adventure in Montana last summer. It kind of happened again.
We were riding one of the upper trails at the ski hill in Leavenworth, and I made it to about here . . .
before I decided to turn around. Once you ride the trail past these trees, you are fairly unprotected from the edge, and you faithful readers know how well I do on those types of hills.
Dan went on to finish the trail without me, and I rode (or walked, depending on the heights situation) my bike back to the bottom of the trail.
While I was walking my bike, I came across a male runner who asked if everything was okay.
"Pssh! Oh yeah," I said with too much confidence. Then I giggled nervously, and he gave me a quizzical look before he continued on his way.
Next, I pulled off to the side as a group of female hikers approached.
"You can go ahead if you want," one of them called up to me.
"I'm waiting for husband," I told them.
"You're the champion!"
"Not really. I turned around. I'm scared of heights," I explained.
"In our books, you're still the champion," the hiker said.
"I'm fine in the trees but once it drops off the hill onto that singletrack . . . " I let my voice trail off so they understood how traumatized I was.
(Maybe this post is more about my acrophobia than I thought.)
"Me too. I can't ride this trail," the hiker said.
Ha! I thought, I'm not the only one who can't finish the trail!
With renewed energy after my chat with the like-minded hiker chicks, I rode down to the lower junction and waited for Dan.
I waited for a while until a panicked female runner caught up with me.
"I just scared a bear off up at the Freund Canyon junction!" she exclaimed. "He crossed right in front of me. I think he probably went the other direction into the canyon, but keep an eye out. I'm letting everyone know."
"My husband was riding up to that junction," I told her.
"What did he look like?" she asked.
I described my Kurt Cobain lookalike husband.
"He should have been on 'For the Boys' all the way up and down," I said.
"Nope, I didn't see him, and I just ran that entire trail."
He wasn't on the trail he was supposed to be on, and he had been gone a while. The remainder of the trail after we parted ways was only a little over two miles out and back.
I rode back to the car. The reception was surprisingly good on the mountain, so I texted Dan.
I also called him and left this totally awesome voicemail.
Another woman in the parking lot noticed that I was dialing the same number over and over and asked if everything was alright.
I told her about a) the bear, b) the fact that Dan had been gone for a while, and c) the fact that the runner hadn't seen him on the trail he was supposed to be riding.
"I wouldn’t worry about the bear. They're pretty gentle around here," she said. "I would worry more that he might have gotten lost on the trail."
"Maybe I should ride back up to the lower junction," I said, or call 911, I thought.
Just then, we spotted a biker on the hill above us.
"There's someone!" she said.
"Woo hoo! That’s him!"
He admitted he had, in fact, made a wrong turn. That's why the runner hadn't seen him, and that's why it took him a while to get back down.
"What? A bear?" Dan said when he checked my text and voicemail, which he found hilarious. "And I missed it?"
I responded with a roll of my eyes.
"You want to ride the lower loop again?" he asked.
"Sure."
So we did. And we still didn't see any bears.
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