The vines recklessly sway,
The breeze, leading them astray.
Imbibing Sun’s nectar,
The grapes extract and store.
When the wine turns sweet, we’ll yearn for more.
Nature’s allure seduces the elements,
The humans are just humble prey.
With or without the breeze,
Wine in hand, we will sway.
– brij
The Brook Falls is legendary, where hungry bears load up on the fish jumping upstream. Nature creates a spectacle; life’s cycle plays out in plain sight. Today we chose to fish in the Brook River.
We encountered bears all day long, sometimes too close for comfort. The first encounter occurred within the first five minutes, a bear was within 15 feet of the trail, giving us a pause.
The cycle would repeat ad nauseam during the day. We waded all day, in my case with porous waders that filled my boots and pants with a few pounds of glacier water to keep me calm during hairy encounters with the grizzlies. Too often, we had to reel in the line to make room for the bears and hasten away.
Near the end of the day, we seemed to have found a sweet spot and caught a bunch of rainbow trout in quick succession. Predictably, the splashing fish attracted hungry grizzlies who converged on us. We quickly moved to the other direction and found another bear closing on us. We waited for the bears to ignore us and walk away to the safety of a bar.
It was an intensely fun day, and I hope it doesn’t repeat itself anytime soon.
– brij