So I have lots of stuff to tell about from our vaca to Alaska. But I'm just going to share my most memorable moment. Sooo it's seems that every year we go to Alaska. I'm not opposed to it at all...and I'm sure this will continue for a very long time considering Danny tries to get us to move there about once a week. anyway, our Alaska trip this year took us to Juneau then to a small town called Gustavus. Most beautiful part of the world I have seen to this date. Well, Danny is still there working (I'll talk about that later) which is why I'm not able to post any pictures because he still has the camera. But the scariest thing I've ever experienced happened while we were there this time..
So we get to Gustavus which is a tiny town (smaller than parowan) and it is home to Glacier Bay National Park. While we were there we decided we would do a glacier tour, some fishing, and hiking. Well it is known to be bear country so I asked Danny before we went if we could ask our friends (Zach and Mutts) if they had any bear spray....just in case. Well they did...but it was out on their boat. We saw some bear spray for sale while we were in Juneau but figured we wouldn't need it so we didn't buy it. So we ended up with no bear spray.
We went to the ranger station and asked about some hikes we could go on. They showed us some hikes and told us there were many people/families out in the forest hiking and backpacking and that we were not alone. But he did warn us of a bear siting. Well we found a hike we could go on that was clearly marked and had high traffic. It was only a 4 mile hike round trip which wasn't bad at all. So we got our things together, put Ashlynn in her pack and headed on out way.
For those of you who have never been to Alaska the forests there are extremely dense. so dense that even if you were to see any animal it would practically be gone in 5 seconds because of how thick the forests are. So we're hiking along and I decide to be in front because sometimes Danny hikes too fast....And we're just strolling along and I come up a little hill in the trail and go around a tree and look ahead and low and behold there is a black bear...about 40 feet away from me on the same trail that we were are on, walking towards us. not even joking.
So you know how they say that you should practice how to react in high stress situations because when you're in the moment your adrenaline takes over? Well that's exactly what happened to me and I FREAKED! I started yelling at Danny that there was a bear...that's all I kept saying...there's a bear, there's a bear and he's like what are you talking about because at this point he was still down the hill and couldn't see it. Well I then turn around and take of back down the hill and Danny grabs me and stops me. He goes up to the top of the hill and sure enough...he also sees the bear. In the mean time I'm leaning over a tree freaking out (no gun, no spray and my husband just went up to see the bear with my daughter on his back...) Well gratefully...Danny's yelling scared thebear off and he went off the trail and into the woods.
Never in my life have I felt fear like that. I was seriously shaking. I really couldn't even talk. Danny seemed just fine and calm and let me know what I should have done. Rule #1...Never run from a bear. It's like running from a dog and they want to see if they can catch you. I finally started to breathe more normally and get control of myself because really nothing bad happened and the bear did run away. And it wasn't a full grown bear we think it was a yearling because it was pretty small. For a bit we were worried about a mama bear (which is much more scary) But because of it's size we figured it had just been sent off to live on it's own. Well you would think that we would turn around and go back to the car. but we didn't, we just kept on going. I was still really shaky but the funny thing is while we were hiking we passed like 5 other families who had only seen the bear at the end of the trail which were far across the river (which was plenty far and safe for me to handle). Some may say it would be cool to see a bear that close...but it's not. It was definitely an experience I don't want to experience again....I love seeing bear in the wild, just not that close
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