Life As A Meme

This summer, I had a day off by myself, and my husband dropped me a pin and told me that if I hiked to it, I would see a lot of elk. He did tell me that there was a 'sorta tough uphill four-wheel drive road' I'd have to walk on, but it wouldn't take me that long.

I drove my little car to the trailhead, and while the dirt road was not rough, it was so steep, my car almost didn't make it. This is what the universe calls foreshadowing.

I got to the trailhead, found the four-wheel drive road, and it was in fact, one of the roughest, steepest four-wheel drive roads I'd seen in a long time. I figured no one really tried to drive up it.

Well, within five minutes, I was proven wrong. I came around a corner and there were two busted up four runners at the top of a rock waterfall. A very nervous looking guy was standing outside of one of them, clearing examining his not so great choices of trying to get back down.

He saw me and looked utterly confused. I decided to go on the offensive, and I asked him if he'd seen any elk. He stared at me a long time.

"No," he finally said. "But there is a bear back there."

It was crystal clear, this bear was very upsetting to him. I on the other hand, had spent a lot of time around bears, and 100% preferred to walk alone up a trail near a black bear than hang out with this dude and his sketchbot friends.

"Great," I said And then I threw him a bone because he looked sweaty and stressed. "Looks like you know what you're doing, getting out and scouting and all."

He did not in fact look like he knew what he was doing, but he nodded in that way someone did so they didn't cry.

I walked past the second car and there were two completely weird looking dudes in there. They gaped at me. I asked the same question.

"You seen any elk?"

It took them a moment to respond. But they did, with their top issue. "No. But there is a bear."

Again, this was great. I left them to figure out how to get out of the mess they put themselves into, and walked up the road that really shouldn't have been considered a road.

Long after I left the inept four-wheel drivers behind, I heard a noise in the woods. It sounded like maybe bear tearing into a big log, but it was off the so-called road, and the road was so f'ing steep that I really didn't stop to explore it.

I walked straight uphill for an hour and a half before finally, finally, finally, topping out into a picture-perfect meadow. And then, after a few miles of walking through various mountain leas, I did in fact see a shit ton of elk. On my way down, the road was so steep, my feet were slipping out from under me. The entire time I was out there I saw only one other group of people, and no actual bears.

I had, once again, been sandbagged by my husband. But beyond that issue, no we could not elk hunt up there because there was no way to hike an elk in and out of there without completely destroying our bodies, I had real life verification.

The man versus bear meme held true in my life. Maybe not for polar bears, but 100% for black bears, and I'm fairly comfortable saying for grizzes too. I'll throw an asterisk in there for walking between a sow and her cubs. But overwhelmingly, I would most definitely rather deal with an unknown bear doing bear stuff than an unknown man doing man stuff.