By Dori Ramsay

Aw, it’s summertime in Big Bend – it’s so hot and dry I don’t even want to move, much less hike. But I force myself out of my lethargy and head up the trail to Boot Canyon in Big Bend National Park. I’ve volunteered in the park for 6 years and never seen a bear here. Now people have been seeing bears for weeks.

I head up the Pinnacles trail early in the morning, I’m at Juniper Flat by 7:30 am. I can almost pretend I feel a little chilly in the shade. By the time I reach Toll Mountain, I stop to wring my shirt out as I’m soaking wet – so much for being cool.

I look down into the Basin and see human occupation and hear the sound of work being done on the water tanks. The sky is white with heat and haze. I just want to get away.

I continue on my way to Boot Canyon. I pass the Boot and am feeling hopeful – could this be the time I get to see a bear? I have I hiked this trail so many times, each time hoping to get a look at just one bear, or a mountain lion.

Suddenly, I hear crashing on my left, and sure enough, there is a big bear running through the woods away from me. It’s my bear! She stops and turns and sits on her haunches and looks, forgive me, just like the Hamm’s Beer commercial bear. What is she doing? Why did she stop?

I slowly put my pack down and pull out my camera. That’s when I see the first cub shimmying down the tree in back of her. A minute later, the second cub, finally the third. No wonder she stopped. She hurries all of them into the woods away from the trail.

I am speechless at my fortune and start on my way again. But now I see a tree swaying and there is no breeze. The 3 cubs are up the tree. I get some pictures and then mama harrumphs loudly at me. Time to go.

I hike out to the South Rim. The Southeast is open early this year. There’s been a controlled burn out there and it’s heartbreaking to see all the agaves and prickly pears burned up. The beautiful grass waves only on one side of the trail, the other is just black stubs of dead grass. But the fear of fire set by lightning is a worse fear and so I try to find the beauty in the survival of these plants through fire and heat.

I can’t resist going back through the Boot.  Within a 100 yards of where I saw them in the morning I see the mother bear and her cubs: the cubs are on the ground rooting around. Mama is right near the trail, closer than I’m willing to pass. I thump my hiking stick and holler as loud as I can “Mama get your babies out of here and go deep into the woods.”

She turns and runs the cubs into the woods, then faces me on a big flat rock. She’s fierce and she won’t back down. I know it is time to leave.

At some point, I’m sure I will stop re-running the video in my mind of my encounter with the bears. At some point it will fade and take its place among the other memories I have of incredible National Park experiences.And I guess that’s the point: most of my memories of awe in nature come from National Parks. What would I do without them…

National Parks may be flawed in concept – how can you protect and preserve and at the same time invite humans in to visit? But what joy there is in re-connecting with life without human artifice. Everyone should be able to gasp in wonder at scampering bear cubs some time in their life.

The bears have continued to be seen daily right now for the past week-and-a-half. Should we close the trail? Should we provide sustenance? They are hungry and I suspect have little water. Or do we let nature take its course and perhaps the bears will have to move on to better sources of food and water?

I know that others, as well as myself, have had their awe restored. I see it as they come into the Visitor Center to report “Their bear.”

Dori Ramsay has been a volunteer in Big Bend National Park for 6 years. She wasn’t born in Texas, but got here as soon as she could, and is currently building “Ramsay’s Rancho Not So Grande” on Terlingua Ranch.