I went backpacking for the first time ever this past week in order to prepare for my upcoming trip. I was really looking forward to it, because I love hiking and I love camping, I’ve just never done it all at once. Just me and my dad, our plan was to hike about 18 miles of the Appalachian Trail in 3 days. If you’re an avid hiker, 18 miles really isn’t that much. If you get your butt in gear, you can do that much in a day. But this was my first backpacking trip and we wanted to take it a little easy at first, so we stretched it out.
Day 1: Our plan was to hike the first 5 miles of our trail and camp for the night. Easy enough for the first day. It ended up pouring down rain all day that day and trying to avoid a miserable hike and camp-setup in the rain, we waited until about 5:30 in the evening to even start our journey. After hiking about 2 miles, we found a great little campsite with a view, and decided to call it a night.
It’s not uncommon to see some black bears along the AT. In fact, it’s kind of uncommon NOT to see some black bears along the AT. I really wanted to see some bears. On our first day, about a mile or so into our hike, I caught a glimpse of one as it ran away from us. While it was pretty cool to have seen it at all, I was a little disappointed that I only saw the back of it’s head as it crashed through the woods in the opposite direction. What I really wanted was to watch the bear as it wandered along, take pictures of it going about it’s day, maybe even touch it. (That part is wishful thinking, but I’m allowed to daydream.)
Day 2: Our original plan was to hike 8 miles to our next campsite. We had to update that plan, though, to match our loss of time on Day 1. Our new plan: hike the 11 miles that landed us at the same planned campsite. The weather had cleared up substantially, so we were able to get an early start on our day. I spent all day looking along the trail for some bears. A lot of deer watched us as we walked by, some squirrel raced us in the treetops, some spiders tried to stop us with their webs, (Thank you, dad, for walking ahead of me and taking the brunt of those,) but alas, no bears.
Day 2; mile 6; around 2:30pm: My dad stopped suddenly in the middle of the trail. I stopped, too, and peeked around his shoulder at the cause. “Do you see it?” my dad whispered to me. Finally, a bear. Just looking at us. “He saw us way before I saw him,” my dad said. We just stared at the bear and the bear stared at us. We stood still and watched it, waiting for it to move on. My dad got my phone for me so I could snap some pictures of it before it meandered out of sight. As I was taking as many pictures as I could, a cub popped out of the brush right beside it’s mom. I immediately thought of the book The Revenant and how well it went for Hugh Glass when he ran into some bear cubs. (Great read, by the way. 10/10 would recommend.) I stood there watching in awe as this mama bear and cub wandered on and looked for food, occasionally glancing our way. Not long after the first cub’s appearance, a second one popped out of the brush and followed its family, slowly making its way across the path.
The bears crossed our path and wandered into the woods. My dad and I waited a few minutes to make sure we gave them a wide birth and then slowly continued on our way. As we passed where the bears had previously been, we looked through the trees to see if we could catch a glimpse before they walked out of sight. We saw the mama walking along, and then we heard a noise like scratches on a tree. The two cubs had scurried up these trees and peeked out from behind the trunk as they watched us from 20 feet in the air. It was absolutely incredible and adorable. My dad and I snapped some more pictures and finally moved along to our destination.
For the next 5 miles, I kept thinking about that family of bears and how cool it was to see them just being bears, going about their day, watching us as we watched them back. We were pretty close to these bears, a mama and her cubs no less, and they weren’t so much threatened by our presence than merely curious about us. As I kept thinking about such a great encounter, I got the feeling that God was saying “Look, I love you. And if you want to see some bears, then you’re going to see some bears.”
This small part of my day was a great reminder of the love God has for us. Here I am, wandering through the woods, trying to catch sight of a bear, and God is like “Why not? Here’s three.” It was such a small thing that I wanted so badly but God didn’t just brush it off and say, “Maybe you will, love.” Instead He said “Of course you can see some bears! Aren’t they great?” And we just sat there, watching these incredible creations just do their thing and remind me how loved I really am.
One of the baby bears watching us from a tree
