Three Bears in a Prius

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Patty and I drove to Red Feather Lakes to take peaches to old friends.  We set up our tent at the Dowdy Campground and went out to dinner with Chuck and Carol Arent.  We had a great dinner and after dinner and good conversation with old friends, went back to the campground to spend the night.  We brushed our teeth, used the restrooms and retired for the night.

This night proved to be a wild experience like none we have ever had before.  It was something akin to the “Blair Witch Project” documentary.  Around midnight we heard some terrible sounding noises outside the tent that made the hair stand up on the back of our necks.  The sound was a choking, guttural, loud, gasping animal sound and we heard something moving fast past our tent.  I was terrified and Patty sat up and said “I don’t think we will spend another night here”, I totally agreed.

We then nodded off into a state of semi-sleep wary of the events that had transpired.  I awoke with a start about 3:30 in the morning to the sound of ripping plastic, breaking glass, growling, snorting and general mayhem outside the tent.  I was freaking out at that point and knew that there animals outside.  Patty unzipped the tent flap and looked outside with the flashlight and didn’t see anything.  I really was feeling the need to go to the bathroom and she said she would go with me.  We even discussed at that point the possibility of sleeping inside the car for the remainder of the night.  I put on my sandals and clad only in sandals and my Las Vegas Girls boxers walked toward the restrooms.  As we passed by on the passenger side of the Prius, Patty shined the flashlight on the car and we noticed that the windows were fogged up.  We didn’t think much of it and proceeded to the restrooms.  After exiting the restrooms we were walking back toward the tent and Patty was shining the flashlight on the driver’s side of the car and what she saw then was a bizarre sight.  The window frame of the door had been bent out 90 degrees from the upright and the window glass had been shattered.  She shined the light inside the car and exclaimed in amazement, “There is a bear in the car”.  This also confirmed what I had heard earlier which was the horn honking.  I thought at that point that whatever was out there was inside the car.  We were both bewildered and confused about what to do.  We discussed hiking about a half mile to the campground host’s trailer.  I wasn’t wild about the idea and thought it would be best just to knock at our nearest neighbor’s camper.  We reluctantly knocked at their door at 3:35 in the morning knowing they wouldn’t be happy about it.  John and Carly from Phoenix, Arizona were very understanding and accommodating.  They invited us in and using their cell phone called 911 and reported a bear in our car and encouraged us to stay inside until someone came to check it out.

After discussing the situation at some length, we decided to venture out and take a look at what was happening.  I was the reluctant one and hung back a bit knowing that if I had to make a run for it, I would have some problems since having a stroke, making a quick get away.  John and Patty moved in closer to the car shining their flashlights in the direction of the Prius.  Suddenly a black bear cub jumped out of the window ran to the nearest tree and started to climb up the tree.  A few moments later a second cub came out the window and scrambled up the side of the hill above us.  Patty, at that point, was beginning to move in closer and was shooing the cubs off.  My fear then was that if there were two cubs in the car that the Mama was in the vicinity.  Sure enough the Mother bear was sitting in the drivers seat of the Prius.  We were simply freaked out by all this and retreated back to the camper to wait for daylight and hopefully the arrival of someone to help us deal with all this.  Daylight arrived about 6:00 AM and we walked back to the scene.  By then the family of three black bears had fled the scene of the crime.  We assessed the damage.  It was considerable and the worst part was the disgusting smell of bear drool inside the car.  They had pretty much eaten all the ribs, jerky, pistachios, cheese and drank all the milk and left in a hurry leaving behind a hell of a mess that smelled like vomit and death mixed together.  Yuk.

Sometime later Officer John from the DOW appeared on the scene and proceeded to check out the scene.  He offered a bunch of advice and personal opinions about how they got into the car.  He mentioned that they had been having problems with a Mama bear and two cubs in that area for awhile.

We cut our camping trip short, drove to Fort Collins, had breakfast and went to our son John’s house to collect our thoughts.  We spent the day attempted to vacuum up broken glass and clean the car out enough so we could drive it back to Grand Junction.  The trip home was somewhat somber and quite noisy with the makeshift plastic cover flapping for three hundred miles or so.  This will always be a camping trip to remember.

Jesús Guerrero Jr.
Photographer/Historian