This time, last year (or at least this is my side of the story) on the Salt River in the Sonoran desert. Our low-water river trip down the Salt River in Arizona was an expedition with lots of wild life. So much life in the desert. Maybe it was the full moon. Our second night out at Gleason Flat was filled with sniffling, snuffling, and a few grunts – courtesy of the local Javelina coming around to check us out. After the third night, a whole herd of deer invaded our campsite at Lower Corral Canyon. Somewhat surprising after the incidents of the night before…
Early in the morning, while my husband was burrowed deep, like a cocoon, into his sleeping bag something pushed his thigh, waking him up. Carefully wiggling out of his bag so as not to wake me, he looked out the door of the tent into the full-moon light and there was a bear cub, right there, looking at him! Now I’m not sure what the appropriate response or thing to say is in this situation, but his response at the time was to yell “HEY!” the little cubby ran off and I woke up. He told me what had just happened and I only half believed him. Might have something to do with his consumption of tequila before bedtime… At any rate, we didn’t think too much more about it and went back to sleep.
Once it was light and we were more fully awake, he showed me the dusty footprint on the tent door and on his sleeping bag, but I still didn’t really believe him until I saw the roll-a-table tipped over with three big footprints on it. Holy cow, mama bear had been doing a table dance!
We found the bear families’ footprints all around the tent, big ones and little ones.Large footprint just outside the tent…
Small footprint right at the tent!
I started wondering about the boats, parked upstream and out of sight so I went to investigate. What I found was a deflated tube on my cataraft and pieces of foam scattered around. Those two bears had climbed on my boat and ripped the seat apart! On further inspection, they had even worked my husband’s seat. Those NRS tractor seats must be really tasty!
I can’t believe this happened!
The deflated tube was caused by a bite on the cone and a rip from either a tooth or claw.
Puncture wounds
And a rip
I went to tell the bad news to Neil and he came down to take a look. Unbelievable and complete dejection.
Our new river friends from Washington came floating along and we recounted the story for them while they took lots of photos. Their reaction? “Best bear story ever!” We “borrowed” some heavy duty duct tape from them to reinforce the Tear-Aid patch and repair the seat and kept going down the river.
What next… Repair time. Some Tear-Aid tape should do the trick. Clear Tear-Aid patch over the rip and bite marks. Tear-Aid reinforced with Duct Tape
Good as new!
Quartzite Falls and Corkscrew were still fun at 700 cfs. After completing the trip, Neil contacted the USFS river ranger to let him know about these two bears. Hopefully they will not bother anyone else next season as this season was almost over anyway. I don’t think we will be staying at Lower Corral in the future…
Corkscrew Rapid with Duct Taped “Butt” (well, maybe not my butt, but rather the seat of my cataraft)!
A lot of folks have commented that it was the sweat from my seat that attracted the bear, but this just is not true. Take note of this photo. It was so cold on that trip I was in a drysuit the entire time while on my cataraft. So there was no sweat on the seat.