Does a Chris Poo in the Woods?

Answer: Yes.

I went backpacking this past weekend in the San Gorgonio Wilderness with friends Ryan and Bob. We arrived at the trailhead around sunset on Thursday night and hiked 4+ miles into Alger Creek trail camp in the dark. I was still fighting the remainders of a post spinal tap headache, so I just took it slow. We set up camp, made some warm drinks, and went to sleep. It felt good to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city, and it felt even better to have fresh air and trees all around me. Unfortunately the euphoria didn’t last long.

When I woke up the following morning, I felt horrible. The headache that I had been bothered by for over a week was gone, but I had developed a stomach bug of some sort. I tried to do a little, easy day hike and couldn’t have made it more than ¼ mile before I had to tell the guys to go on without me. I spent much of the rest of the afternoon squatting behind trees and throwing up along the trail. Not a pleasant experience. I couldn’t eat or drink anything. Everything came up or out one way or another. By the end of the day Friday, I was beginning to wonder if the one roll of TP I brought into the woods with me would be enough. This is the point at which silent panic sets in.

Luckily, by the time I woke up on Saturday whatever had gotten me sick had passed (and that’s a very nice, and literal way of putting it.) I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the weekend. (I didn't really take many pictures, but I posted a few at the end of this entry.) The highlight of the trip would have to be something that happened while I was cocooned in my sleeping bag, unable to get out.

On Saturday night, Ryan and I decided to abandon out tents and sleep outside in just our sleeping bags. Of course, this is after a brief period when it actually snowed Saturday night, which meant it was pretty chilly out. Not liking my nose to be cold, I completely mummied myself in my sleeping bag and had the top cinched closed so that there was only about a 2-inch air hole at the top of my head. Ryan was sleeping next to me in his bag with his head poking out the top.

Around daybreak, I was drifting in and out of sleep when Ryan shoves me and yells, “Get out of your bag NOW!” It didn’t sound like merely a friendly suggestion. It sounded more like, “There’s a mountain lion about to eat you,” than like “Hey, check out the pretty sunrise.” I struggled to free myself from my cocoon, but was so twisted around in my bag that I couldn’t even locate the zipper. In the mean time, I heard Ryan yelling at something in our camp to “Get the heck away from here!” At this point I figured we had company of the bear persuasion. Knowing I was stuck in my bag, I decided it was best not to move and draw attention to myself, so I froze until Ryan could unzip me. Apparently he woke up that morning to find a full-grown black bear standing less than a meter from our feet. He yelled at it to shoo it away, tried to get me to get out of my bag so I could get a look at it, and then continued to shoo it off. The bear turned out to be a momma, and her and her cub scampered up a hill at the far end of our camp.

Previously this summer when camping in Sequoia, I had encountered my first-ever bear in the wild. I looked on for about 30 minutes as the male black bear ate berries along a stream just down a ravine from me. The bear, unaware of my presence, eventually started walking up the ravine and got within 20 feet of me before noticing me and choosing a different route to wherever he was going. I remember the adrenaline rush of having the bear come so close. But that was nothing compared to this. Unfortunately, I was stuck in my sleeping bag the whole time and only got out in time to see some indistinct, large, black object disappear into the woods. But it’s still crazy to know she came so close! Black bears aren’t known for aggression so typically won’t attack unless they feel threatened. The idea of a bear in the campsite, therefore, isn’t really frightening, more like exciting! Had we been sleeping in our tents we probably wouldn’t have ever known the momma and cub wandered through. Makes me wonder how many time’s I’ve been in the proximity of black bears and just didn’t know it because I was asleep and bundled up in my tent. Probably a lot more than I previously thought. Anyway, if you want to hear Ryan’s account of the bear encounter (and see a funny photoshopped impression of him as the famed Grizzly Adams) check it out at ryangwillim.com.