The Reason I'm afraid of Bears

The Reason I’m afraid of Bears

Every summer we go to the western side of Idaho and run Bears with our dogs.  We hunt with our friends Ben and Carrie who have great bear dogs.  We usually head up there sometime in July and it seems to be Kody’s favorite thing to do for our anniversary…me not so much.  First off the Idaho Mountain ranges we hunt are densely covered where it’s hard to even maneuver once the dogs bark treed.  There is so much ground cover it’s almost unreal.  I’m constantly checking myself for ticks in the warm July sun and hoping to god I don’t get car sick on the winding forest service roads. 

We usually end up taking some young dogs that haven’t been started on Bear to see what they will do when the rig dogs bark and then we turn them all lose.  It is not unreal to see 2-5 bears a day…there are bears everywhere there!

On a late morning hunt the dogs started barking on the box we turned them loose, sat up on a large rock and listened to the chase.  Kody and I heard this squawking noise about 100 yards below and decided to take a look.  At the very top of the tree was this little 30 pound cub, precious to say the least.  I wanted to swaddle it, cuddle with it and take it home with me.  I got some pictures of him and we sat under the tree while Ben looked at his Garmin and said the dogs were still running the mother, less than 300 yards away and coming too.  I mentioned that we should probably get the heck out of here because Mother Bear poop is the last thing I want to be.  I tried explaining that I have a life to live back at home, a family, a husband and baby brothers and a sister.  Ben simply told me that I would get some good pictures.  I guess that was the ticket for me to stay. 

Here is Little Bear

Ben said, “There she is!”

We all stood up, camera in hand.  I’m not fibbing here, that momma bear saw us, wheeled around on her back legs and was coming at us like a Mexican fighting bull…only meaner.  We all stood up and hollered at her like an old cow and 10 yards before she tried biting off my big toe she turned and ran the other way.  I was scared and for a minute and thought I was no longer alive.  It was unquestionable that if I was going to start running bears we would need to go to the local Wal-Mart and buy some adult diapers because jeans are getting way too expensive to wet yourself in.

This is the picture I took when I was near death.

The back of my husbands shirt.

~Wyoming Wife