Page 11 - 2016 AMA Spring

be torn apart and eaten, we didn’t have a chance, not a hope, the creature was powerful and feral and unhuman, it was a beast that survived to live and eat and raise young, it couldn’t be talked down, controlled, there was no compromise to be made, no gentle words to be spoken.
We launched again into the woods, sweating and swearing and shouting and banging axes, following our trail. But we discovered it wasn’t our trail we had been following, it was the bear’s trail, and after an hour we had become hopelessly lost. We crawled beneath a massive tree. It was an anomaly as all of the other trees were big with wispy branches, this tree was massive with thick branches.
“Let’s climb the tree and wait for the morning and daylight.”
I looked into the branches and imagined being sat in minus sixteen with Greg bleeding and suffering hypothermia. “No, we need to find the ropes and get out of here.”
“Let’s head for the cliff top.” Greg said before throwing himself over snowed up rock shelves which were just above the cliff face. Down – down and down, cartwheeling. Powder exploded. We were about to launch over the cliff and a small part of me hoped we did.
Greg shone his torch. I kept watch. We stood on the edge of the cliff looking down, peering into dark space. We had come too far right. We had to retrace our steps, head back, back into the woods, back towards the bear. I knew I had to be forceful because Greg, normally very sure, was losing blood, he was going into shock and his thinking was not to be trusted. A part of me felt we were never going to find the ropes, we were going to be stuck up here, stuck up here in this nightmare, stuck up here with the bear and if we weren’t attacked again, Greg would surely bleed out. ‘We had to retrace our steps.’
Another hour, crawling, bushwhacking, following our steps, we at last discovered where we had gone wrong. Within minutes we found the ropes and the place to abseil. Greg abseiled first. I sat on the cliff top, looking into the dark, looking into the trees while all the time expecting them to explode with a freight train of growling fur, while holding both axes. I hadn’t clipped-in, thinking, if the bear came, I would jump. Eventually Greg shouted and I followed and after reaching the snow, the two of us waded the middle shelf between the two sections of a climb called Shooting Star.
We screamed and shouted making as much noise as possible and in the distance wolves howled in reply. “Nick, stop howling, the wolves will get us.” Greg’s boot was full of blood, squirting from the tooth hole every time he stepped. I followed wondering at what distance bears can smell blood?
Reaching the bolted anchor above the first section of Shooting Star, Greg rigged the abseil, and again, I looked into the dark holding my axes. The abseil was from a twisted single bolt. My mind was calming and I thought how ironic it would be to now die of an abseil anchor failure.
Three abseils later we landed and waded our tracks for another thirty minutes until reaching the road, it was twelve forty-five a.m. and at two thirty Greg and I entered Banff Emergency Hospital after I had driven us. The friendly nurse asked me if I wanted a drink, but there was no wine on offer so I had ginger beer. Greg couldn’t drink anything as the five huge holes in his shin, which were so swollen now his shin resembled his thigh, might need surgery. I savoured the ginger beer and I told Greg it tasted good.
I don’t quite know how my Canadian trips went from coffee shop afternoons to middle of the night grizzly bear attacks and ginger beer, but I can honestly say, I prefer coffee.
ARMY MOUNTAINEER 9
AMA Spring 2016 text.indd 9
01/07/2016
15:41