Illustration by Josh Hagler

Monday October 22, 2001

Last time I looked out of Tucson toward the mountains, it didn't look like

Montana - and it certainly didn't feel like Montana. Yet, a few days ago, it was a mistake that could have been easily made - a mistake that's in our best interest not to make.

My boyfriend, let's call him "Morgan," (because Morgan is a sexy name) and I left the city on a Thursday night to camp at Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains. I was anxious to sleep outside - okay, sort of outside - like a lazy backpacker, in a car. We drove the truck to our favorite spot, off a dirt road, surrounded by tall grass, with a great view of Pima Mine.

It must have only been about 10 minutes, when suddenly, Morgan screamed and closed the back hatch. I had never seen him that scared. And that scared me.

It turned out that he had heard the growl of a black bear probably less than 10 feet from the car. After honking the horn repeatedly, we slowly got out and looked for prints. We decided we couldn't stay there that night. After all, the bear had approached us while we were making noise (if you know what I mean) and didn't have any food. Instead, we nervously drove back to Tucson and got Taco Bell.

For those readers who read my columns last semester, you might remember the one I wrote about my truck getting stolen in Mexico. Well, what I left out of that story was that I was really bummed because that truck still had greasy black bear prints in the back window and deep claw marks running down the side.

Illustration by Josh Hagler

The visit by the bear in Madera Canyon rekindled a very disturbing memory. It was dark when we found the campground in the Medicine Bow Mountains outside of Laramie, Wyo. My friend, we will call her "Tasha" (because that's her name) and I were on a road trip to Montana when we decided stop and camp for the night. Pulling the 1986 Toyota into the campground, we were careful to check the bulletin board. Not one "beware of bears" sign was posted, so we thought we were in the clear.

We placed our tent about 20 feet from the truck. With the "just-in-case" mentality, we placed all our food in the cab and brushed our teeth away from the tent. The only possessions that followed us into the tent that night were two miner flashlights and a couple of water bottles.

That night could have easily made it on my list of most peaceful sleeps if it hadn't been for the low sniffing from the nose that poked me in the head through the tent. Brushing it off as an extra large elk, I tried to go back to sleep.

But it was the shriek of claw on metal that raised every hair on my neck. There was a colossally huge animal out there, and it sounded liked it was destroying my truck! Tasha and I shook with fear. Eliminating the possibilities, we decided it had to be either a mountain lion or a bear. Because cats are shy, our money says it was a bear. But we were in freaking Wyoming and had no idea whether it was a grizzly or black - the knowledge leads to the decision to play dead or fight back.

And if things didn't seem bad enough, the night was dark. Real dark. No moon dark. Our ears were pitched to every crack of a stick or scratch of a claw. Around 1 a.m., the campers next to us figured out what was going on and shined a huge hunting spotlight on my car and the sounds stopped. They began to make tons of noise, and we thought they were just banging around to scare whatever it was away.

But, what they were really doing was leaving. Not 10 minutes later, the animal was back banging, trying to get into the truck. We were completely alone - needless to say, we didn't sleep well.

Everything turned out fine. The bear eventually broke into the cab and went through our food, fighting with the raccoons and trashing my truck with hair, shit and mud.

I became aware of my own mortality that night.

I learned that dawn always comes. It also put me back into my place. Man must respect the bear. Although we must be careful, we can live together.

The mountains surrounding Tucson aren't just full of saguaros and rattlesnakes.

We should bear that in mind.