{"id":936,"date":"2010-07-17T08:55:50","date_gmt":"2010-07-17T12:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fortispress.com\/blog\/?p=936"},"modified":"2010-10-21T17:37:12","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T00:37:12","slug":"bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=936","title":{"rendered":"Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Bears. I sometimes think about them when hiking. No need to. Colorado and New Mexico – where I go – have black bears, who almost never attack. Unless.<\/p>\n

It’s the “unless” part that gets my attention. Unless you startle one. Unless you separate a she-bear from her cubs. Unless the creature is having a bad fur day.<\/p>\n

So I think about it.<\/p>\n

Like yesterday morning. I was alone, over an hour from the trail head, and my son sent me a text. Now, most of my adventures are out of range for cell phones, and, even when I do get a call, I rarely pick up.<\/p>\n

But Jon’s family was on the road and he needed directions. So I stopped and answered.<\/p>\n

Which means I was quiet for a few minutes. Not something I do in bear country. I whistle, hum, talk to imaginary friends. I use my deepest, Marine Sergeant voice:<\/p>\n

“Big group. Big group coming through. Big group with big guns.”<\/p>\n

Now, I don’t know for sure it was a bear I heard in the underbrush. Sounded more like a step or two from another human.<\/p>\n

“Who’s there”? I said.<\/p>\n

Silence.<\/p>\n

So I kept walking, maybe a bit faster, thinking about those animal attack stories on TV. Let’s see, you challenge a mountain lion and play dead for a bear.<\/p>\n

I wondered what I really would do. Just don’t see myself playing dead while a 400 pound animal attempts to have me for breakfast.<\/p>\n

Then it came to me: those loud, annoying alarm sounds on my cell phone – maybe the ambulance siren or the barking dog. Surely, bears know that where there are dogs there are hunters. Surely.<\/p>\n

Nope, didn’t get the chance to find out. But maybe one of you could test the hypothesis for me. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bears. I sometimes think about them when hiking. No need to. Colorado and New Mexico – where I go – have black bears, who almost never attack. Unless. It’s the “unless” part that gets my attention. Unless you startle one. Unless you separate a she-bear from her cubs. Unless the creature is having a bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}