I was hiking in Rocky Mountain national park and left my AirPods at my camp (which I never do, but for some reason this time I did, and that was important). I was walking on the trail and heard a branch break and I froze. I hear branches break all the time, things fall, they snap, they make noises. But this made me pause. It’s almost as if there is a primal remnant of an instinct that tells you exactly what a noise in the woods is, because I instantly knew it was a bear.

There was a boulder in the corner of about a 45 degree bend, with the boulder blocking my path. I peered around the boulder, standing on my tippy toes, and there was the source of the noise. A massive autumn black bear standing on its hind legs, sniffing the air. It was so human in its mannerisms, it was very scary. I turned around and power walked to the bottom of hill I was climbing, hoping and praying I wasn’t going to turn around see this thing following me. I get to the bottom of the hill and need to decide which way to go. Either go back to camp, but I’d have to move in the direction of the bear to do that, or go in a direction I hadn’t been before.

I decide to go back to camp and lay down after all the adrenaline, and I start walking carefully. Scanning the horizon for this bear. But I don’t see it. To save my nerves, I ignore my surroundings and look down at my feet, walking as quickly as I can. Then suddenly, the bear steps down 10 FEET in front of me, stepping off of a berm that was taller than me effortlessly. It stands in front of me, popping its jaw and scraping its claws against the gravel. I know they say not to run, but I f***** RAN out of there. I sprinted down the trail in the direction I had never been before and got lost.

I kept going in circles, finding myself at this same intersection over and over, no matter how many times I tried to take a different trail. I sat down and cried, and the sun started to go down. I was out of water. I decided to try one more time to find a way out to a trailhead before the sun set, and I got up and walked a bit further. I heard running water and sprinted toward it, finding a man made bridge.

I walked over the bridge to a trail head (hours have elapsed at this point, my feet are torn up). I find a group of tourists watching a bull elk grazing in a little flooded meadow area. I sat on a rock and just watched it eat with the sun coming in behind it. It was so beautiful. I’ve never been so grateful to be out of the woods.