A Life Wasted

Cooper Landing - 1989

There were three men in the tiny cluster of homes.  Contrary to my normal loner lifestyle I befriended all three.  The first I met was Red.  Red was older than my grandfather, so I'd not call us pals, but he was friendly and interesting.  I was drawn to him enough that I would put Red in the immediate friend category, though that would soon change.  The second man I met was the Dave who leased and operated Red's restaurant along with his wife Becky.  Like us, Dave was new to Alaska and one of the more interesting people I have met.  The third guy was John.  John owned and operated the nice lodge up on the hill.  John was a long time Alaskan, who like Red, had a well known name throughout the state.  John was an accomplished wildlife photographer, one of the best in the state.  John had a formal letter from President Ronald Reagan complimenting him on the three eagle photographs that hung in the White House.  I was with him once when he received a package from National Geographic that was a shooting assignment which included a block of film and a check.  When National Geographic pays a guy in advance for a photo assignment, that fellow has arrived as a wildlife photographer.

I was drawn to the three for different reasons and all of them gave me their full attention when they were with me.  Red wanted to use me, but I believe John and Dave genially liked me.  With three new friends and the entire state of Alaska to explore I had plenty to do.  The day after the incident with the wounded bear I went on a fishing/hiking trip with Jason, Dave's teenage son.  The Kenai River, which is one of the best known fishing rivers in the world was literally a stone's throw from our cabin, but Jason, wanted to see and fish a remote lake on the mountain behind my cabin.  So with fishing gear and a large caliber pistol on my hip Jason and I hiked up the mountain.  It took three hard hours of hiking to reach the high lake, but it was worth the trip.  The small lake sat inside a bowl of mountains in such a way that made it impossible for float plane operations, so the only way to reach it was by helicopter or the hike we'd just endured.  According to Red, the lake had abundant trout and was never fished, so Jason and I were eager to give it a try.

The October day had been warm and pleasant, but before we could get set up the weather deteriorated.  In minutes the bright beautiful day changed into a cold raging snow storm.  I was new to Alaska however, I was a student of the weather.  I knew that whatever had brought this sudden and drastic change had a deeper storm pushing it.  So with regret, but without hesitation I told Jason we had to abandon this trip and come back another day.  We had to get off the mountain quick.  There had been no ground snow on the trip up, but we'd barely started the trip down when snow had become a problem.  Half way down we were struggling through eighteen inches of wet heavy snow and it was clear that getting home was a matter of survival.  We'd been moving down the mountain as fast as we could so needed to stop for a moment to catch our breath.  When we stopped both of us heard something crashing down the slope behind us.  Jason and I turned at the sound but couldn't see anything through the thick brush, but both of us smelled it.  Jason said, "Bear," at the same instant my mind identified the smell.  It was the same smell we'd both commented on the previous day from Red's black bear.  The same basic smell only stronger, even though we weren't close enough to see this bear.  Yet.  We had only paused for a second to process this before Jason and I began running down the mountain.

I'd like to think that I allowed Jason to go first and I stayed back as the rear guard to protect my friends son, but the truth was that Jason was younger and faster, so he was ahead of me on that crazy trip down the mountain.  I never actually saw the bear, but from his sounds and smell he got far too close before we pulled away from him.  When we got home I told Red what happened.  He said the only thing that saved us was that large bears don't move well down a steep grade.  After saying this, Red smirked and nodded towards the large pistol on my hip.

"Why didn't you just shoot him," he asked.

"I forgot all about my pistol," I answered truthfully.