Maulrats

Days Walking - 97

We only got about four miles of hiking accomplished today. It was a pretty uncomfortable experience, it was a day of waiting. And if you know me, you know I hate waiting. Ask someone who knows me, ask "What does Litany hate?" and they'll reply:

"Litany hates waiting."

My pet peeves also include cat fur in my underpants.

So we got up, ate breakfast, packed and stowed all our crap, and got underway. After about two and a half hours of hiking, we had to make use of the road (something we avoid during most of the day) because the way became very steep.

When the way through the foothills gets narrow or especially steep, the only way is the roadway. We spread out and take steps for safe road travel. So we started walking the road.

We came around a blind curve to see a giant slab of roadkill. It was a caribou, and it must have been hit by a truck, but it looked like it had exploded from the inside. Caribou guts were all over the place, and the carcass was nearly split in two but not quite.

It would have been better if the dead beast had been ripped in two. It looked to be held together by shredded, sad fragments and it was awful to look upon.

But simply finding a dead caribou would not have slowed us down for long. It’s sad, but it’s no cause for loss of hours. What did slow us down was the Big F*cking Grizzly Bear.

BFGB was enjoying the free lunch of caribou. It was a real life double-take situation. We come traipsing around the corner, unsuspecting, and pow, blood and goo.

I took in the gory scene in a left-to-right pan and scan view punctuated by a “Woah” moment worthy of Keanu himself. And just as my gaze was cringe-squinting at the sight of the bloody chunks, I saw the bear, big and huge and brown and ginormous and his face and paws were bloody and he was eagerly tearing into the carcass like those guys you see at the Chinese Buffets, those guys who come just for the crab legs. Those guys that will wait until a new crab legs steam tray is delivered, and then they mound their empty plates until they spill onto the floor or the steam tray is empty.

Actually we couldn’t tell if the bear was a big brown bear or a grizzly, but we weren’t about to come close enough to gather a stool sample for analysis.

So we backed the hell up, doubletime, like some badass bandit army was on our tails, and got the hell out of his way. We moved back north a good couple of hundred yards, and kept an eye on the bear with the binoculars.

He was taking his sweet time with the carcass. He worried it and played with it and dragged it around for most of the day. He dragged it to the side of the road, into the fringe of the brush, and started digging, possibly to hide his meat for tomorrow. But he gave up after a few minutes and went back to snacking.

This went on all day. I don’t know that the bear ever really noticed us. If he did, he gave no sign. We got the heck out of his area pretty quickly, so he really had no reason to be annoyed with us. Not that a giant emm effer needs a reason.

We waited a total of five hours, and eventually the bear dragged a good sized chunk of meat away with him into the unknown. At that point, none of us felt much like hiking. After a couple of more miles, we found a good spot to camp and took it.

So yeah, it was a fun day of blood, gore and waiting to be mauled by a grizzly in the night. Needless to say, we’ll be extra alert on watch tonight. And he probably wouldn’t even do us the honor of eating us. Just kill us all and leave our mauled carcasses for the birds and vermin. Fun!

Litany Webb, signing off

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