Bears in the Canyon
Why Do You Always Bring Your Camera?
It was a normal trip down Big Thompson Canyon to Sam’s Club where we’d purchase big containers of way too much bulk stuff that would fill our pantry for months to come. As I walked out the door my wife, Carolyn, said, “Why do you always bring your camera.” I answered, “Because you never know.”
That was three years ago, and as we wound through the quick curves of the canyon, I watched the mountain side for movement. Nearly to Drake, we slowed at the gathering of cars on the side of the road. I didn’t need to say anything because Carolyn was already pulling over, knowing there must be something to see.
Then she exclaimed, “Bear, get your camera. Your camera. Get it.” “Bear where,” I searched the hillside. Pointing, she instructed, “On the front porch of that cabin. It’s a big bear. Get your camera.”
With my camera, I hopped from the car. Moving around the crowd, there on the porch of a little, dilapidated, historic Big Thompson cabin was a huge black bear. He stood with the screen door open, pounding on the closed front door. How, I wondered, does he know that’s the front door?
Moving among the people, I stopped capturing shots. The bear looked over her shoulder as if guilty that we all knew she was committing the crime of breaking-and-entering. Then the bear dropped to all fours and lumbered over the porch and down the steps, around to the back.
Walking the roadside for a better angle, I saw them. Two cubs were clinging to the side of a tree just above the rooftop level. One black phase and one reddish, they played like baby bears will, moving and climbing, turning and looking at the people. The black one pawed the red one on its nose, and the red one swung a paw back in her sibling’s direction.
The mother bear climbed on a rock, sitting tall before us in a perfect pose. Carolyn appeared beside me, asking, “Are you getting this? They’re so beautiful.” My camera kept clicking, and I kept capturing images one after another.
Climbing down from the rock, the mother bear moved back onto the porch, back to the door, and continued her criminal behavior. Still, the door would not open, some crazy person probably using a double lock. Frustrated, the sow moved back off the porch to her cubs.
On the Cover of Estes Park News
There she watched her twins above her playing in the tree. Then she stood, leaning against the cabin with one paw and looked back at us. I kept capturing images as Carolyn said, “Wouldn’t that be cool if that picture was on the front of Estes Park News?”
For such a long time, I took pictures of the bears. Mom would disappear behind the cabin then reappear on the other side. The cubs were up and down the tree, playing, following mom, then finding another tree to climb.
I kept taking pictures, when Carolyn teased, “Aren’t you glad I told you to bring your camera?” Laughing together, I answered in my sarcastic but loving way, “Of course, dear.” Then I took more pictures.
On June 4, 2021, the image of the mother bear leaning against the cabin, her cubs in the tree above her, was on the cover of Estes Park News. I was honored that they would think so much of my photography to use the photo. I took it home, held it up to my wife, and when she clapped with excitement, I said, “That’s why I always take my camera.”
