The Tale of the Old Bear (as told by DPCH)

Well, you should understand that there are two versions of the bear story. There is Lisa's (also known as the LIE or Satan's version) and there is mine (a.k.a. the gospel truth). There is no reason to relate Lisa's version. You only need to know two things: The first thing you need to know is that I never left her behind with the bear. The second thing you should know is that I don't remember much about what happened.

But that is OK. I have photographic evidence. See the photo below. I am standing right beside my darling wife. Just as any simian male is instinctively driven to do.

We are directly in the center of the photo on that rock. Actually this was taken on the way up by Kira (who is at the bottom of the mountain). We were probably about a fifth of the way up but we were not sure we would make it to the top so we had Kira take a picture at this point.

Indeed we did make it to the summit (almost). The top can not be seen from this pick - it is too high. At the top there are only steep rock faces and we had to look around for some passage to the summit. I found a perfect passage.

Now being an educated person I certainly did some reading on how to avoid a confrontation with a bear. The particular article I read recommended making lots of noise as we walked so that the bear will avoid you. Now I understand that this is probably not a good strategy for bears that are asleep. You should probably be quiet during their bedtime.

Remember that perfect passage to the top I mentioned above. Well, it stands to reason that the bear was well aware of this passage long before I arrived at the mountain. In fact there is a little cave at the top of this passage and the bear chose this passage for its home. Quite a wise choice given that little critters that bears find delicious would probably also fancy this path. It all makes sense now. Too bad I only deduced this after I almost stepped on the sleeping bear.

Here are my exact words as Lisa tried to tell me that I should not attempt to find a path to the top - "Yes, Lisa, this is a perfect path - except for the .... beaaarrr!"

Then I proceeded down the mountain with my darling wife in front of me - sort of pushing her along.