OF GUNDELBERG and the BEAR

One summer long ago Bob persuaded me to join him in an attempt to climb Mt. Challenger in the Pickett Range, part of the most remote segment of the North Cascades.  Such a climb would have entailed three days of trail hiking (each way), a day of rock scrambling and glacier avoidance, followed by a bivouac – culminating in a glacier-climb and some roped rock climbing to the summit.  However, I didn’t know this at the time, having not yet invested in my Beckey Guide, so, trusting, gullible twit that I was, I agreed. 

Well, we packed up and awaited a stretch of good weather which, true to form, simply refused to materialize.  Finally, a chance came – well into September, with cold weather and the beginning of teaching duties looming.  Off we went.

To satisfy your curiosity – no, we didn’t summit Challenger.  In fact, we scarcely got near it.  Our attempt  and its eventual failure may furnish subject matter for several future essays.  Right now, however, I want to tell you about our interaction with The Bear.

He was big.  He was black.  He was uninterested in and unimpressed by humans, except as related shortly.  Obviously he had been relocated to Whatcom Pass, deep in the wilderness - where this adventure took place -  from some civilized campground where he had come to regard people as mobile picnic baskets.  In short, he was bad news.  We turned him in when we came out – I wonder if they moved him again.  The Brooks Range would have been a good choice.

So, on the day this adventure started, carrying full packs we left the trail and headed upward.  About a half-mile off the trail we came across the bear, drinking from a shallow pond.  Genuine wild bears in the Cascades almost always run when they see humans.  Not this guy.  He reared up, eyeballed us for 30 seconds or so, and then sauntered off with an air of total unconcern.  Contempt, almost.  This was no wild bear.  This was a campground bear.  But, no way was he going to follow us out onto the ice, so we forged ahead.

Later that same day we came back off the rock and ice, our tails firmly between our legs, thwarted by an adventure I will describe later – and planning a second attack on Challenger, by an alternate route.  While I began to set up the tent, Bob went down to the trail, which followed a tiny stream, for water.  He came back quickly and said “Better tear down the tent and head way down the trail.  That bear we saw this morning is sitting in the pass, eating somebody’s pack.”
 

Well, we circled around and went about a mile down the trail, then hoisted our packs into a tree and walked cautiously back to see what was going on.  No bones scattered around; there was only a sleek and happy bear, sitting – so help me God! - on its haunches, with someone’s obviously very expensive backpack in its lap.  I hollered “Is anybody here?”, and a quavering voice came back: “Yes, and I’m in trouble”

Seconds later, the pack-owner came slithering down from  a nearby tree.  He had been throwing rocks at the bear, with no success.  To summarize this unfortunate waif:  He was a recent graduate of USC, taking a summer (of hiking) to “get his shit together”.  (This was the 70s; people talked like that then.)  He was at least 6 ft 3, had long blond hair, and was on his way out - he was to meet his sister the next day at the trailhead.  He had arrived at the pass several hours earlier and, knowing that there were some attractive lakes a few hundred feet up the north side of the ridge, dropped his pack by the trail and scampered up to enjoy the view.  He was clad only in a pair of shorts and some expensive hiking boots.  Everything else he would have needed to survive was in that pack – and it was freezing every night, with civilization at least two days hard hiking away.  The lesson, boys and girls?  Well, you can guess.

So Kid, as I will call him, ran up to us exuding gratitude at every step (as well he should; without us he was dead meat.)  Spying my ice ax, he grabbed it and asked “If I hit him with this ice pick, do you think he will give me my backpack back?” to which Bob replied “Kid, if you hit him with that ice ax you’ll never need a backpack ever again.”  Slightly deterred, and noticing that Bob was carrying a metal canteen, Kid snatched both and stood about ten feet in front of the bear, beating on Bob's canteen with my ice ax, bouncing up and down and screaming “Ho, bear, Hi bear, give me my &%*@!%-ing pack back!”  The bear, of course, regarded this as dinner theater,  He would look on appreciatively and then, every so often, rip into another compartment of the pack with a delicate fore-claw.

Well, finally we persuaded the Kid to surrender to fate.  He followed us down, out of the pass, to a wooden shelter-like structure where we built a big fire, fed him, loaned him our spare clothes (but remember – he’s 6 ft 3, whereas Bob is maybe 5 ft 11 and I’m even smaller.  Then we sacked out, leaving Kid shivering by the fire.

The next morning, he was gone.  However, as we were packing up, down from the pass he came, with what was left of his pack.  Remarkably, the bear had spared his down jacket and sleeping bag, while scattering everything else all over.  Nothing edible was left, of course.  Bob always carried an “iron ration” of (barely) edibles.  This time it consisted of a big block of cheddar cheese and some heavy, dark, dry bread that tasted like adobe brick.  These I gladly gave to the Kid, and off down the trail he skipped.  I guess he made it.

So anyway, Bob and I tried to get at Challenger another way and, after some fun and a few mishaps, gave it up.  But that is for another day.