BEAR, black, Branches

The day began unsuspectingly like any other. Little did I know that shortly my life would flash before my eyes.
We decided to head to the trailhead of Deception Falls, which took us even deeper into the woods in the middle of nowhere.
We trekked uphill, enduring millions of mosquitos and droplets of rain during the mid-afternoon sudden rainfall.
The Falls were stunning and worth the trek. We admired them. And I wandered deeper into the woods to get closer to the Falls.
As I was suddenly a ways away I spotted some berries and thought how nice it would be for bears to eat those tasty berries. Then I thought about what I would do, by myself in that moment if a bear showed up. Nonsense. Just like our bear jokes during the last couple of days.
Started walking back down and the family that had been at the falls when we arrived were long gone.
Brooke was walking ahead and shouted "Maybe if I run, the mosquitoes won't eat me!"
I shouted back "Yeah, but the bears will!"

A few minutes later, I hear a very cheerful yell from Brooke: "BEAR, bear!"
I thought "Silly Brooke, you don't joke about things like that"

Suddenly I saw Brooke walking back on the path towards me, with a look of panic in her face.
First thought: "Oooh, fun! I can get a cool bear picture"
Second thought: "Oh wait, there's a bear. I'm probably going to die because it will rip me to shreds."
So I put away my camera.
We grabbed large branches and started banging them hard against trees and yelling. After having broken our branches into small sticks from all the hitting, we proceeded down the trail at a slightly faster pace.
We spotted the bear again, farther away from the path than it had been. Avoiding all possibilities of eye contact, we trekked ahead, passing it, but stealing quick glances backwards to make sure it wasn't following us.

Holding my stick, I realized I could not do much with it, but could not stop to pick up a new one. Instead I tried grabbing random branches that looked dead but were actually still attached to the trees.
Brooke told me to yell, but I was dead quiet. I was too busy thinking of the multitude of ways we would get eaten by, mauled by, or ripped apart by the bear.

A "safe" distance away, we heard rustling in the bushes directly to our left. Later we found out it was another bear.

We came up the edge of the hill, and saw our vehicle, as well as the vehicles of the family who had left the falls long ago.
They said they had been waiting for us to come out, because they had spotted the bear crossing the road and walking directly onto our hiking path.
Thankfully I lived to tell the tale. Perhaps a bit of a dramatized version of the tale, but I was truly scared. There's a small chance it would have attacked us {but then again, how can I actually know that?}, but thankfully it did not!

I love hiking, but next time I will think twice before going into the middle of the woods in a very remote area with just one other person.
Or else I will at least bring my flare gun, shot gun, bear spray, bag of long sticks and 20 friends.
So I did not come away with a good picture of the bear, but rather a great story of my near encounter with death. I was thankful for the bears we did see while in our vehicle and was likewise thankful they didn't come join us in our tent.
That night as we were sitting around our campfire, I kept hearing noises {the people next door's fire} and was convinced it was a bear. Now I have a fear of bears being everywhere.
Our favorite camping game was, "What would you do if there was suddenly a bear right _____?" We had some good scenarios and reactions drawn up. Did any of them actually hold true during our actual time? No.
Morale of the story: Next time your mother tells you that you are going to get mauled by bears in the woods, listen to her and bring some bear spray.