Choke Creek

It all began when...

Dale and I were hiking a couple of years ago at a place called Choke Creek. The place was beautiful. Miles and miles of green trails and a clear stream. But so quiet. On the week after Labor Day we had seen only one other couple. As we hiked deeper into the mountain woods their warning played on our minds. Something about not being able to get a cell signal. We tried. We couldn't. And then...

"Are those?" I asked.

"Yep, bear tracks," Dale said.

A little later. "What's that?" I asked, pointing to neon orange goo speckled with black dots.

"Bear poop," Dale said.

We picked up the pace. It was a six mile hike and we were half-way. My ears went on hyper-alert. Soon I began to hear swishes off on the other side of the bushes. Then crackles of branches. Was it my imagination, or did the ground seem to vibrate a little...as if a heavy weight was thudding over it?

Dale heard it too.

We ran.

For miles.

I kept checking the map. The trail kept twisting and turning. It was getting dark. We kept running. It seemed we were either getting close to the road and our car and safety... OR, pant... pant... pant... We were LOST!

In those protracted moments of panic a flurry of possibilities ran through our minds: What if we ran into a bear? What if we were lost and had to spend the night in the forest? What was that out there?

Back in our sweet little cottage jacuzzi later that night we came up with an interesting plot of what might have happened to another couple in our situation. Another couple not quite so fortunate.