Accurate Signage (With Bears)

Short Version:
We camp by a lake (with bears), go for a run (with bears), hit another big ride (with bears), and see some bears. Up close and (very) personal.

Long Version:
We spent three nights camped on the shore of the lake variously known as Tyax or Tyaughton*. We arrived at the Friburg/Freiberg/Friberg** Recreation Area, sweaty and hungry on the back of a 2.5 hour run/walk up Gun Creek, to find a group of English picnickers spread across two of the three campsites, which was irritating, but once they left we were pretty chuffed with the spot. The lake water was warm, but the wind was chilly and was picking up as the day wore on, so we skipped the swimming and read books instead, as the fish leaped and the loons played call-and-response from opposite ends of the lake. Their cry is mournful and wild, and sounds very much what loneliness and isolation would sound like, had they a sound. Especially so with the echo effect from the hills surrounding the lake.

Rain arrived overnight, and was still there when we awoke in the morning, so we backed the van down close to the shore, opened the rear doors, and spent the morning in bed, reading, writing, sculpting, playing cards, and drawing pictures. Mist swirled in random patterns on the surface of the lake, and hung like scraps of gauze on the tree-covered slopes of the hills. The rain stayed all day, varying in intensity from almost-nothing to serious thunderstorm. The latter included a massive downpour along with some big boom and crackle. Our new camp-neighbors had arrived just before the storm hit (Hi Doreen and Robert!), and for a while there were two vans, each containing a couple, battened down and with water sheeting off them. Then one of us went out for a run while the other read her book, and the symmetry was ruined. Running in the gloom of a cloud-covered forest just after hearing a bunch of bear stories was a marvellous adrenaline-fuelled experience, especially when I stood on and snapped a stick, provoking a frenzy of activity not five metres away as a bear took off in the opposite direction.

Lake Tyax/Tyaughton is the home base of the float-plane we'd seen on Spruce Lake, and it was in and out several times during that first day (less on subsequent days as the weekenders departed), so we were quite surprised the next morning when our breakfast was punctuated by a beaver cruising past the campsite, slapping the surface of the water with its tail periodically. It made a surprisingly loud, booming splash, like a big stone dropped into a deep pool. It cruised back past the other way about fifteen minutes later, with less tail-slapping activity, then dived and didn't resurface just south of the campsite, near a pile of sticks and mud we spied later and speculated might be its lodge.

We rode from the campsite up the road we'd driven with Tim the other day, to and past where we'd parked his truck, and on to Taylor's Cabin. No other people around this time, so we took some time to explore the cabin and its surrounds before heading up and out of the basin, west over Camel Pass instead of north to Windy Pass. The view from Camel Pass was pretty spectacular, as was the descent on the other side down into a basin even more full of blue and yellow flowers than Taylor's was. Similar riding to what we'd had coming out from Spruce Lake, but the rain had settled the dust (and reinvigorated the flowers!) and the trail was in pretty much perfect condition. Which wasn't much help when we came to climb the ridge over to the next valley, which was too steep and mud-slippery for riding, so we walked in the clearly-visible pawprints of several bears of various sizes up to the ridge and again up and out of the next valley over.

And then we started down the Lick Creek Trail, which had some awesome sections at the top end, but became steep and precipitous enough to be called hair-raising in places, unrideable in others. Not the most fun we've had on our bikes, although the bit where we stopped to watch the bear cub scramble up the tree was pretty cool. Spotting Mama Bear watching us intently from a spot just in front of the base of the tree was mildly totally scary - especially given that she was light brown like many grizzlies - but she never stopped eating, which we took as a sign that she wasn't particularly concerned with our presence. We left anyway.

The downhill flattened out and became more fun, and then we hit old logging roads, which enabled high speeds, except whenever we remembered there could easily be an enormous bear around any one of the many blind corners. Then we hit the trail I'd run the day before, rode across the partially-collapsed bridge we'd had a crack at repairing during the previous evening's walk, and were swimming in the (surprisingly shallow) lake soon after.

Next morning our departure preparations were interrupted by a young (ie Nene-sized) bear, foraging his way along the lake shore towards our camp. I was off doing what bears do in the woods*** at the time, so it fell to Lovely Wife to inform it of our presence, which she did by speaking loudly and clapping her hands, causing it to: a) notice her standing 5m away, waving a stick; and b) run away fast. The escape path it took brought it right past me, which was a surprise for both of us.








* = Depending on which map or sign you choose to believe

** = Depending on which map or sign you choose to believe

*** = In case you were wondering, yes, they do. And on roads, and trails, and in meadows, and pretty much blimmin well everywhere. And judging from the size of some of the piles we've seen, there are some REALLY BIG BEARS around the place.