Once we drove into the Shenandoah National Park we joined the Skyline Drive south and east along the Appalachians to find a ranger centre where we planned to participate in typical American outdoor activities, short of shooting and skinning an elk.
Horse riding in the Shenandoah National Park
Helen’s been bothering me for years to try horseriding. I’d only been on the back of a horse once, in a Welsh youth camp, when several of us sat on placid ponies and were led around barn five times before we were allowed off for lunch. Horses had never been high on my list of things to do before I died but horseriding did seem to make sense in the States so we made our way to the stables, carefully avoiding the piles of horseshit everywhere and booked an afternoon horse trail. With a half-hour to wait we thought we’d walk through the woods and have a picnic.
If the word ‘park’ conjures up a picture of mown grass, trimmed hadges, perhaps a small pond and some swings, well, that’s not what US parks are like at all. In the US, the National Parks are enormous areas of wilderness with the occasional well-maintained and signposted path. Once you’ve driven through a ranger-operated pay-station and into the park you will be surrounded by tracts of untouched land harbouring all sorts of dangers. In Death Valley a couple of years ago, for instance, nobody stopped us from driving an unpaved desert road for thirty miles in 110° F. We didn’t see anybody else all day on the track and if we’d broken down we would have stood a fair chance of dying.
in Death Valley, 2004
So we walked off down the start of the trail and stepped into the woods to spread out the picnic blanket Helen had packed into our luggage and sat down with the sandwiches we’d bought. About ten minutes later I heard a noise to my left and looked up at two black bears running past, one chasing the other.
When you see a bear in a zoo you’re separated from it by an unscalable wall or an unswimmable moat, or some other means of stopping the bear from eating you. These two were about 30ft from where we sat, running quickly, with thin air between us. I don’t think they noticed us sitting on the rug. Once they’d crashed off into the forest I got to my feet, wondering what two bears might be running from. Another, larger bear, I thought. I made my way back to the path, heart thumping, and trembling with excitement. Helen sat happily waiting for another appearance.
According to Wikipedia’s list of fatal bear attacks, a woman was killed by a black bear not too far away from our encounter. Black bears don’t go in for pretending to attack you, to scare you off. They just attack you.
