Diary of a Nomad: The Best Weekend Ever (and almost my last)

I'm baaaaack! I had to return to posting a little early in order to share the story of my latest adventure. Please read about my weekend below or, if you prefer scroll down to the pictures, but if you do you'll miss my big story!

Now I may be exaggerating a little in the title of this post, but this weekend was definitely in my top 10, even though I had what I consider to be a “mini” brush with death. But more about that later…

I was away from my apartment a lot this weekend. I missed all 3 Twins games (I usually watch online) and the Seahawks season opener. My couch missed me, and so did my cat. But I don’t really care because my weekend pretty much rocked, and here’s why.

Friday: Happy hour with the gang from work – food, drinks, bowling, etc. Water was my drink of choice because I wanted to be in good shape for hiking, but a good time was had by all

Saturday: Up at 6am and off to Mt Rainier. I’ve been there frequently this summer, as you know if you’ve so much as skimmed my blog, but this weekend I experienced it in a whole new way. People often wonder why I keep going back over and over when there are parks and trails closer to home. It’s because there is so much to see and so many trails to explore. Every trip is a new and exciting adventure – it never gets old. I spent the day there Saturday and visited some old familiar places within the park like Narada Falls, but I also hiked a new trail and got a magnificient view of the Nisqually glacier and wildflower meadows. I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked. It was more about hiking and less about photography. Afterward I decided to drive to Sunrise on the other side of the mountain, approx. 60 miles away. Sunrise is the highest point reachable by car – 6,400 feet. I had never been there before and I’m glad I went because it was fabulous! (In fact, I liked it so much I decided to go back Sunday morning). On the way home I stopped at Flaming Geyser State Park for a little while. The park is pretty nice and close to home. It was a pretty drive through farmland to get there too. Then I stopped and bought myself a HD antenna so I can finally watch television! I probably rarely will, but still it’s nice to know that I CAN if I want to. I actually got the antenna with the hopes of watching the Seahawks game but that didn’t work out. The plan was to be home by 11am on Sunday to catch at least half of the game, but that didn’t happen.

Sunday: I left at 5:30am and drove up to Sunrise. Wow! Spectacular views of the cascades and Mt Rainier. Since I didn’t want to stay long, I decided to hike a short trail called Sourdough. I must have gone the wrong way because I ended up on a trail called Silver Forest instead. I thought about turning around but sometimes when I make a wrong turn I find it happens for a reason, there’s usually something for me to discover. It happens all the time in the car. I’m still pretty new to the state and sometimes I get a bit uh… turned around. But it often helps me to discover new places or new routes. So I figured I must be on that trail for a reason and just followed it. The trail had gorgeous 360 views of the mountains and lots more for me to photograph. It went through sub-alpine meadows filled with wildflowers and wildlife. Chipmunks, birds, bears… Oh, did I forget to mention my encounter with a bear in the wild? That was the harrowing near-death experience I mentioned. It went down like this. (I remember every second in detail because believe me, it is an experience I will never forget.)

So I was meandering along slowly, stopping to take in the view and take photographs of colorful butterflies. Several times I thought about turning around but I decided to give up on catching the football game because I was enjoying myself too much. I was walking very slowly with my tripod resting on my left shoulder. I shielded my eyes and looked up to see where the sun was to try to gauge what time it was. I was trying to make up my mind whether to continue on the 6 mile long trail or head back so I looked up ahead to see where the trail went next. The moment I did so, I saw a fairly large brown colored bear saunter out from behind an evergreen tree, no more than 75 ft in front of me. I’m amazed at how many thoughts crossed my mind in so little time. I instantly froze in my tracks and my first thought was 'holy crap I can’t believe it’s a bear' quickly followed by 'He could close the gap between us in a heartbeat, I might be in big trouble'. When he paused and turned to look at me, (he was walking from right to left across the trail) I pictured him charging at me and my heart was beating out of my chest. As I slowly started backing away I looked around for cubs and tried to judge his intentions. I then turned around and started walking medium speed looking over my shoulder to see what he was doing. At this time I was thinking 'Mom was right, I’m going to get mauled to death by a freaking bear'. She kept saying how worried she was about me coming across a bear out here. I told her I had a much better chance of dying in a car accident. Ha! Apparently not.

You see, my Mom has been putting the fear of God into me over bears since I was young. We used to watch nature stories about them, and read accounts of bear attacks. I’ve heard just about every bear mauling story there is and I’m actually quite educated about bears even though it may not seem like it. Anyway, when I looked over my shoulder and saw that he really couldn’t care less about me and kept walking along his merry way, I thought I should at least try to get a picture. So I put my tripod down but he disappeared behind the stand of evergreens on the other side of the trail before I could even turn my camera on. At that point, the panic set in. My survival instincts wouldn’t let it happen until I was a little safer. Then I turned and ran because all I could think of was getting away from that situation and back to my car. I had had enough wildlife for the day. I saw a couple hiking in my direction and I waved at them and as I approached out of breath I said “Bear!”, pointing behind me. They seemed to think that was pretty cool and they started heading in that direction. They said I was lucky to see a bear but advised against running away from one. They were so non-chalant about it, I was thinking ‘what the hell, it’s a freaking bear people!’ To see it from their perspective, they must have thought I was a damned fool running, flailing my arms and yelling “bear!” I told them I did not run until after the bear was gone. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but it’s true. I had a serious panic attack afterward, I must have hyperventilated for a good 15 minutes, I was light-headed, my chest and ribs hurts from front to back like they were being squeezed in a vice and I felt sick to my stomach. I was truly stressed out. Eventually I calmed down and then I regretted not getting a picture. It all happened so fast but when I recall it, it was like it happened in slow motion. It was a beautiful chocolate brown, even though it’s technically a black bear, and it had cute fuzzy ears like a teddy bear. I’ll never forget my intial shock upon seeing it. I was mentally unprepared for it. I recall when I was doing my research on the park back in April, a website had stated that there were only mountain lions and no bears, or maybe it said no grizzly bears, only black bears, or perhaps it said there were a few bears but sightings were rare. Whatever it said, I took from it that running into a bear was not going to be an issue and never really thought about it again. Probably not so wise on my part.

If you don’t think my experience was scary, take a walk far out in a field or woods and measure out 75 steps like I did. Now picture a bear suddenly appearing at that distance out of nowhere. You are alone and there is no one around for miles (those hikers I saw were the first people I had seen all morning), you have no cell phone because there is no reception, all you have on you is the keys to your vehicle and a camera on a tripod. So, you are walking very slowly and quietly when suddenly an adult bear appears out of nowhere 75 ft down wind from you. He had no warning you were there and turns to look at you. Is your heart racing a little? Yeah, I thought so. And those two calm and collected Marty Stouffer wannabe hikers would probably have the same reaction if they were surprised by one so close up. So that’s my bear story. It was scary as hell but also exhilarating and made for a pretty kick-ass weekend. Oh, I called my Mom to tell her about it on the way home and all she could say was “You're grounded’ over and over and over. LOL I’m 32 years old and living 4 states away! But she’s really scared about me getting attacked by a bear, and that’s one of the reasons I thought it was going to happen. Next time I’ll be more prepared, make some noise and carry my little bottle of pepper spray just in case. She wants me to wear every Christmas jingle bell I own. I told her I will because I feel bad for scaring her like that. LOL poor Mom.

Now for pictures. Enjoy!

Saturday: