The Black Bear Scare!

Monday [8/25/14]

For our last FHE in August, I decided to surprise Chad and have our lesson and activity in the Prince William National Forest. I packed some hamburgers, salad, grapes and bug spray and picked Chad up after school at the metro. We headed out on our adventure and drove about 40 minutes to the forest. Upon arrival we found a picnic table and set up our nice portable grill to start grilling hamburgers. We ran into our first problem… Our little propane tank didn’t have the right type of adapter to fit the grill. We decided to improvise and start a fire. Second problem, it had been raining all weekend, all the wood on the ground was wet, kindling was wet, and our fire was not starting. Since it was beginning to get dark we decided to save the hamburgers, eat the salad and head for a hiking trail we had heard about.

Trying to start a fire...

The trail is supposedly a total of 1.5 miles round trip, even with the growing nightfall we believed we could make it before it got too dark, plus we had a headlamp. Well after walking about 15 minutes, it was beginning to get a little eerie in the forest. I got a bad feeling in my stomach, but Chad didn’t seem to feel the same eeriness so I kept walking. We came to a fork in the trail where a plaque stood, which Chad began to read. Then a little ways off I heard a twig snap. I asked Chad if he heard it, he said yes, guessing it was probably a deer and we had nothing to worry about. But then there was another snap, and another. I was getting scared, really scared and asked Chad if we could turn around and finish another time. On the way back Chad said at first he thought that it might be a deer, and then maybe a person, but the snapping was loud, whatever it was sounded like a big animal. When we got back to the parking lot, the car that had previously been there was gone, which ruled out the hypothesis that the noise came from another human. On the way home Chad did some research to see what it could have been.  There weren’t many animals that live in that forest, the possibilities: coyote, black bear, deer, or smaller animal… Like I said earlier it sounded like a BIG animal, and it followed us for a little while. Chad and I were grateful that we turned around, even though we don’t know for sure what it was. If we kept going and the noise had come from a black bear, most likely on the return trip the bear would have been between the car and us. That would not have been an exciting adventure!

Glad to have made it back to the car :) 

Even though we didn’t get to eat our hamburgers in the forest, or finish our hike, it was a successful FHE! Chad loved the surprise and we both enjoyed being able to be in the great outdoors again.