136-Making Our Way To Site 33...

The concrete was a pleasant change of grade from the trails that we’d been hiking earlier in the day, and feeling refreshed after washing up at the bath house my mind was able to focus on the next task that lay ahead.  When you are camping it is a bath house, unlike your bathroom at home which hopefully doesn’t house spiders the size of an adult palm or black widow’s nestled in the corners out of harm’s way.  Also, unlike your walk down the hallway from your bathroom to your living room, you don’t have rangers pulling up beside you in their full-size pick-ups cautioning you of black bears.  “There was a bear sight’n just now in the campground, so be careful,” said Ranger Rick (the John Doe of rangerdom) with a serious tone.  “It was a cub so ya know mama’s watch’n,” he added to drive home the importance of this in-person camp memo.

I’ve been guiding trips down in the Red River Gorge for over 20 years and have never seen a bear, crossed a bear track, stepped in bear scat, or witnessed a bear scratch on a tree; nor met anyone who has.  And yet, there are bear bins for trash and bear signs warning visitors of the dangers, complete with instructions to hang your food when traveling in the backcountry to protect yourself.  Last trip, Chase and I joked together that our “bear bag” should be more suitably called a “varmint bag” due to the lack of bear in the area, so we opted to hang it five feet off the ground instead of the recommended twelve… it was late.  As I imagined our upcoming meal cooking under the fly in the night air, smells wafting from the pot that housed the coveted white chicken chili and a stealthy black bear innocently wandering into our site for a closer look, Ranger Rick completed his loop and slowed to a stop beside us holding up his phone.  “Just found em on site 33.  Here’s a picture of em.”  The eighth-grade guys I was in charge of protecting gathered around the open window of the truck to get a closer look.  Ah, this is perfect, now we are all seeing the evidence so we can take this situation seriously, I figured to myself, then led the group back to our site to put away any unneeded food back in the van.

All was well in my guiding world, feeling pretty safe around a campfire, loud kids gathered in one space to bring the intimidation factor into play (from a bear’s perspective), topped with laughter and banter to increase the community that was forming before our very eyes.  Then that moment when things go from perfect to what could turn catastrophic happened, and I knew that my response might make the difference for at least one guy’s trip.  “Brandon, where are you going?” I asked as I saw him leave the group after he let out a frustrating, “STOP IT!” aimed at another young man in the crew.  Down the steps into the blackness of night he went, no headlamp to light the way.  I barely made out a left turn onto the paved camp drive, when I realized we were at site 27 and the numbers increased to the left.  So, I gave an authoritative, “Brandon, I need you to come back—now!”  There was still no response to that desperate tactic, so I jumped up and started after him. 

“Brandon, hold up!” I said calmly this time, not revealing my concern for his direction of travel and attitude should he meet the bear at site 33. Coming up beside him now, slowing my rushed jog to match his brisk walk, I continued, “You know, it’d really be a bummer if you and the bear met up at the next site. Clearly you are frustrated and I’m sure you have reason to be, but would you be okay being frustrated at our campsite for me?” After a short moment of contemplation Brandon complied, made a one eighty and headed back to our site. We briefly discussed the situation that caused the need for some space, then he made his nightly home check-in call that gave him the time he needed to regroup and join us at the fire. 

Sometimes we get frustrated, all of us, without exception I imagine. So, the real question is, what do we do with it? We live in a world where immediate comfort is sought for and receives a high price to be obtained—easier work, more comfortable environments, less effort to communicate, more time for braindead activity… easy is not always best, though. It certainly wasn’t easy for Brandon to turn around and face his frustration the way someone else was suggesting. Pride is much easier. Anger is easier. Spouting off your mouth in frustration is way easier in the moment. Walking to site 33 to escape the people who are bothering was an easy choice for Brandon. Recognizing fault in yourself is much harder to do, along with showing patience to those who are also at fault, especially when they can’t see it themselves. We are all human, make mistakes, and are sometime just plain jerks. Near the end of Proverbs 14 Solomon tells us “He who is slow to wrath has great understanding, but he who is impulsive exalts folly.” How true that is. It was true for King Solomon in the tenth century BC, and it’s true for us today as we wander toward site 33 before turning back to safety.

-Matt