The Legend of “Cliff”

Posted On April 17, 2020

MY TRUE ADIRONDACK HIGH PEAKS BEAR ENCOUNTER

Author’s Note: Originally appearing as “Cliff The Bear” – “A Memorable Encounter At Lake Colden”, this true life vignette was the second in a series of five articles I had published by Adirondack Life Magazine over a six year period beginning in 2014. It can be found in their August 2015 edition, as their “Barkeater” feature, on page 70 of that issue.

I am going to try offering something a bit different with this piece. I will post it two ways. First, in it’s original form, as I wrote and submitted it. Immediately beneath that, I will present the edited piece, as Adirondack Life Magazine published it.

I thought some folks might find the comparison interesting. “Cliff” is one of my personal favorites. It sits close to my heart. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

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A Black Bear Named “Cliff”

(Original Version)

     Each of us has events that occur in our lives that live within us forever. Some are “firsts”; first kiss, first home run, first buck, first car.  Some are tragic, like a car accident, death in the family, or wartime experience. 

Others simply are.  These events mark a special place in our lives, a bookmark in our memory.  For me, one of these events involved a summer job in the Adirondack Mountains, a night along a High Peaks wilderness trail, and a black bear named Cliff.    

     It was 1984, my second summer working in the mountains.  I’d returned in May from my junior year at Cornell to my home in Saranac Lake.  I lived with my parents and my younger brother in our massive cobblestone residence on the corner of Stevenson Lane, overlooking the river and the Pine Street Bridge.  It was an imposing house.  It had been built by Italian stone masons during the 1^st World War, with cobblestone quarried and brought in from up near Malone, for the then princely sum of fifty four thousand dollars.

“My Family’s Saranac Lake Home”

(Artist’s Sketch by Jane B. Gillis-1977)

     There was a stone pillared porch, and impressive stone archways framing a carport on the Pine Street Bridge side.  Our house had five entrances.  On the first floor there was a dining room, and two living rooms, a formal one with a fireplace and glassed French doors, the other was our “family room”, with a beautiful winding wooden staircase along one wall.  Each living room had an immense bay window, formed from the three story turrets bracketing the Pine Street side of the house.  There was a back staircase off the kitchen as well, a den, a pantry, and a glassed in rear porch.

     Upstairs there was a long, wide hallway, four bedrooms, and a bath.  Two of the bedrooms also had big bay windows. The master bedroom had a half bath of its own.  My bedroom looked out over the porch onto Stevenson Lane.  The third floor was an unfinished attic that we used for storage.         

     There were two massive blue spruce trees in front of the house, our front yard always littered with their cones.  Out back, just below the garage, were the remains of an older building, also built of stone.  It had likely been a servant’s quarters at one time, but all that was left was the foundation, and some steps leading down to a large stone fireplace that we used for barbeques and parties.  Below that, our yard fell away steeply to the river, where my brother and I grew up swimming, fishing, and exploring by canoe.

     Up the street, at the crest of the hill, was the Stevenson cottage, where Robert Louis Stevenson had once lived and written.  Just beyond that, Stevenson Lane dead-ended at Old Man Quisnell’s little game farm, where a variety of rabbits, goats and chickens were kept, as well as a fish pond with shiners and minnows that could be purchased as bait.

     How we ended up with that landmark house isn’t so important, but it was a wonderful place for a boy to grow up.  I wasn’t been born in Saranac Lake.  In fact, we’d moved nine times across Northern New York before landing there.  I was on my fifth school when we finally settled there in 1973.  My father worked for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. We moved every time he got a transfer or promotion.

By 1984, my father was the Regional Director for the DEC’s Region 5, headquartered in Ray Brook, no doubt a big factor in my landing that job. I wasn’t born there, but I grew up there, and to this day, when folks ask me where I’m from, I say “Saranac Lake”.     

         I was home from college, working a summer job for the DEC- the Conservation Department-ENCON-The Department of Environmental Conservation.  It had, or had had, several names as I grew up.  I’d spent two summers working as a laborer at Meadowbrook campsite in Ray Brook, not far from the DEC headquarters building.  Meadowbrook was sandwiched between Tail O’ The Pup, an iconic local eating establishment with outdoor picnic tables and a menu ranging from hotdogs to lobster, and Tri-Lakes Ford, where I would later buy my first truck.

     I had graduated the summer before from the campsite to the DEC’s trail crew.  We worked out of the regional office at various sites throughout the high peaks.  We hiked the trails, picking up garbage, clearing “blow down” – the trees that would fall by wind or age across the trails, building water bars, stringer bridges and ladders, and maintaining the outhouses and lean-tos, amidst a variety of other chores that went with the job.  I sometimes wondered what my co-workers thought about working with the Regional Director’s son.  Whatever their thoughts, they kept them to themselves, which was just fine with me.

     During my first summer on the trail crew, we’d spent some time at the Lake Colden Interior Outpost, doing trail maintenance under the guidance of Jim, the caretaker stationed there at the time.  Jim was in his mid twenties, a Paul Smith’s College grad, originally from New York City, as I recall.

Jim’s “New Yawka’s” accent belied his abilities as a woodsman and his high peaks trail system knowledge.  He was a good leader, well organized, tolerant, easy to get along with (as long as the work got done), with a focus on quality and an emphasis on safety.

     I’d learned a lot from him that first summer, and we’d gotten along pretty well, as far as I knew, despite my being the Regional Director’s son.  On a couple of occasions,the trail crew had stayed at the Interior Outpost for several days at a time, undertaking several larger projects.

     One such project was replacing the phone line to the Lake Colden Interior Outpost.  The “Interior Outpost” was a cabin with an upstairs bunkroom on the northwest shore of Lake Colden.  There was a storage barn off to one side, and an outhouse behind the cabin.  The cabin, as it existed at the time, had been built sometime in the early 1970’s.  I’d been there as a young teenager on several occasions with my father.

       The caretaker on those earlier trips had been a small, slender, man everyone called “Brownie”, due to his long beard, no doubt, though I remember his beard as being more reddish than brown.  During those trips, my father had explained to me the effects that acid rain had had on the mountain lakes, specifically Avalanche Lake and Lake Colden.  When we stopped at the outpost,  Brownie would show me photos depicting stringers full of beautiful trout caught on guided expeditions to Avalanche and Colden in the years before pollution killed the lakes.

     There was a clearing between the cabin and the lake, where a previous cabin had been situated, with a small wooden dock to which was tied a canoe and a rowboat.  A wooden bridge crossed Cold Brook flowing down from Iroquois Peak, emptying into Lake Colden near the dock and the clearing.  The clearing was a small meadow, used by DEC helicopters in the spring and fall, to re-supply the interior headquarters with canned and dry goods, propane, tools and supplies too heavy to carry in on foot.  It was also available, when needed, as a base for air rescue or emergency operations.

     The cabin itself consisted of a ground floor with a large great room/kitchen area, two bedrooms and two storage rooms. There was a large open bunk room upstairs, with several army surplus beds and mattresses. The bunk room was where the trail crew stayed when we worked there.

In the great room there was a large picture window looking out towards Lake Colden.  There were several rustic sofas and chairs, and a wood stove, with a cushioned toilet seat hanging on a nail on the wall behind it.  The toilet seat was strategically placed so that it would be warm for whoever needed to take it with them on a trip to the outhouse in the middle of a chilly Adirondack mountain night.

     There was a kitchen area, with a gas stove and refrigerator, and a sink with an old fashioned hand pump that drew water from a well directly beneath the cabin.  There was always a pitcher of water by the sink, used to prime the pump. We routinely had to check the pilot light on the refrigerator to ensure it was lit.

     We had a two way radio, connected to the DEC dispatch center, and a telephone.  On those nights when the clouds hung low between Colden and Algonquin, and lightning would crack the darkened sky, each strike would make the phone go “ping”- “ping”.  None of us would venture to pick up the receiver on one of those nights.

     That summer, my first on the trail crew, we had the task of laying new phone line to the Interior Outpost.  The line ran on telephone poles from South Meadows to Marcy Dam, where there was another outpost.  From there, it ran on the ground, buried where it crossed trails and streams, following the trail to the edge of Avalanche Lake.

At that point, we rowed the cable across the lake in a small rowboat kept, locked and out of plain view, for use by DEC personnel working in the area.  We dropped the cable to the bottom of the lake, anchored at various intervals by running it through concrete blocks dropped over the side of the boat.  At the far end, the cable continued over ground, until it reached the cabin at Lake Colden.

      We worked out of Colden, rising early, eating a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and sometimes “Colden Cakes”, Jim’s own concoction of pancakes spiced with apple slices, sugar and cinnamon.  At the end of the day, we’d hike back to the cabin, where we’d eat again, grilling steaks, or pork chops, or whatever we’d hiked in from town, washed down with a few beers or sometimes a “cocktail”- usually Jim Beam or Jack Daniels, from a flask someone invariably had brought along.  We’d sit around after dinner and play cards, and I’d listen to the older guys on the crew tell stories about rescues, adventures, and encounters with bears.

     I’d had a great time that first summer, despite the black flies, which were ever present in ravenous clouds, and the hard work, which left my hands raw and cramped and my clothes drenched in sweat.  So, when on this second summer on the trail crew, I was offered the opportunity to work almost exclusively out of the Interior Headquarters as Jim’s assistant, I jumped at the chance.

     I would hike in on Mondays, work for two or three days with Jim, then stay for two or three nights in the cabin alone, while Jim hiked out for his days off.  This allowed continuous coverage of the place over the busy summer months.  For a young man living in the Adirondacks, it was the job of a lifetime.

     Each week started with a trip to the Grand Union Supermarket in Ray Brook.  There were plenty of canned and dry goods at the cabin – flour, sugar, canned orange juice, soup, tuna fish, coffee and such, but every week I would shop at Grand Union to pick up fresh foods for the week.

I’d buy hamburgers, steaks, pork chops, fruit, vegetables, eggs, bacon, sausage, cold cuts and bread, all paid for through a voucher from the DEC.  No one ever told me of a dollar limit, the only limit seemed to be what I was willing to carry into Colden on my back.  I was willing, the DEC was buying, so my pack was always jammed with food.

     I was only twenty at the time, and even with a pack full of food and several changes of clothes and other assorted gear, I’d always find room for a six pack of beer or a small bottle of Jack Daniels, (bought on the side with funds of my own, of course).  We didn’t drink much, and never during the workday, but in the evenings, a beer or “cocktail” (our term for a little whiskey on ice) was nice. 

      I would fill my backpack on the voucher and head for South Meadows.  Most of the crew would hike in and out from Adirondak Loj, but I preferred the old truck trail to Marcy Dam.  My father and I had hunted deer, grouse, and rabbits on the ridges and valleys off the western slope of Phelps Mountain since I was twelve.  I’d killed my first buck there, gotten lost and un-lost there, and spent many nights under the stars, camping there with my dad.  To me, it was home.

“My First Adirondack Buck”

“Taken from the ridges of Phelps Mountain”

     I hiked up the truck trail, stopping to rest at Marcy Dam, where I’d chat with the caretaker, if he was there.  Then up through Avalanche Pass to Avalanche Lake, past  Trickle Falls, which fascinated me.  The water there at the top of the pass dripped down out of the mountains, falling a few drops at a time off a moss covered boulder along the trail near Avalanche Lake.  One splash to the right, and it ended up in the St. Lawrence Seaway, one splash to the left, and it ended up in the Hudson River, it’s destiny determined by which way the wind was blowing that day.

     I’d then hike around the lake on the trail hewn into the rocks, cliffs, and boulders on the north shore of the lake, with the Trap Dike slicing down Colden’s massive rock shoulder, across the lake on my left, and Avalanche and Algonquin rising hard above me on my right.  Occasionally, if the boat was on my end of the lake, I’d unlock it and row across, so that it would be there for Jim on his trip back, but usually, Jim already had the boat at the other end of the lake, and I didn’t mind the walk.

     There was a series of beaver dams at the end of Avalanche Lake, between it and the swamps leading into Lake Colden.  The trail veered to the right of these, past what was once Caribou lean-to.  The lean-to was gone.  The trail crew had recently cleared the debris from the site.  I continued up the trail, through the lowlands between the mountains, until I reached my destination.

     Once at the cabin, I would unload my food and supplies, and eat lunch.  Jim always had an agenda of projects for us to complete while we were up there together, whether it was building a stringer bridge or ladder, laying a water bar, or clearing blow down from a section of trail.  Twelve of the forty-six Adirondack high peaks occupy the terrain within a day’s hike of the outpost. We were responsible for the trails to all of them.

We worked primarily on the trails around Lake Colden, the Cold Brook trail between Iroquois and Algonquin over to Indian Pass, and the trails along the Opalescent and Feldspar Brook, between Cliff, Gray and Skylight, past Lake Tear of The Clouds and on up to Mount Marcy.

       The water in the brooks along those trails was so cold that some of the rock outcroppings overhanging their banks had their undersides coated in ice year round, even in July.  On occasion, when working along those trails, we would take along a couple of beers, and secure  them in gravel in a deep pool as we worked our way up the trail.  On our way back down, black fly eaten and drenched in sweat, we’d crack a cold one, there on the stream bank, next to the trail.  Once in a great while we’d even take a quick dip, but only rarely, and only a very quick one, because the bugs were always bloodthirsty bastards and the water coming down off the mountains was little more than liquid ice.

     In the evenings, we’d row across Lake Colden and tie up at the dam.  We would patrol the lean-tos and campsites, talking to the hikers, encouraging them to take their garbage with them, not to use soap or shampoo in the lakes and streams, not to cut trees (“dead and down” was the rule), and to secure their food properly so that it, and they, were at reduced risk from mischievous raccoons, but more importantly, bears.

     Raccoons were a nuisance, but bears were a problem.  A careless hiker could easily invite trouble – cooking bacon, sausage, or most anything over an open fire, wiping the grease on their pants, then storing their pants in their tent- or sleeping in them.  Worse, hikers might store their food in their tent or lean-to. 

The smoky aroma of cooking food drew the bears to the area, where they’d follow the scent of food to its source, right into some unsuspecting hiker’s tent, pack, or sleeping bag.  Such an event was not likely to end well for the hiker, and we wanted to avoid confrontations, because we didn’t want anyone hurt, and didn’t want to have to clean up the mess, or have to coordinate a midnight rescue of a badly mauled or mangled hiker.

     Raccoons made a mess, usually right at the site, which hikers would often leave behind, and we would have to clean up.  Bears would drag a pack or food bag off into the woods, leaving a trail of debris, and a cache of garbage at the end.  We would follow the drag trail, hair on the backs of our necks standing, always watchful, as we never knew how far the bear had moved from its stash.

We’d see tuna and food cans with holes bitten in them, shredded debris, and sometimes footprints giving us an idea of the size of the bear.  Then we’d have to haul the garbage back to the cabin, where it was bagged and stored in the shed until the chopper came to haul out a load.

     On this particular summer, there’d been one especially large bear who’d seemed to have taken up residence in the area.  Jim had nicknamed the bear “Cliff”,  after Cliff Mountain, a trail-less peak that was one of the original “46”, (since determined to be about 60 feet shy of 4000 feet).

The bear’s movements indicated that it lived somewhere up in the rocky crevices of that mountain, which offered both a convenient overview of, and hiding place from, the lean-tos and campsites at the southern end of Colden below.  Based on hiker accounts and the footprints we saw, the bear was a big one, four or five hundred pounds.  Cliff had become accustomed to being around people, and increasingly persistent in claiming their food. 

     To help hikers try and avoid losing their food to Cliff, the raccoons and other bears, we’d educate them on how to hang their food, high up, between two trees.  There were many elaborate setups, and even many of these weren’t successful because, of course, bears can climb trees, and in many instances, even bring them down.  It’s amazing how resourceful a bear can be when they smell tuna or bacon.

But at least, with food hung, the bears’ attention was away from the tents and lean-tos where people were sleeping.  We’d go from site to site, always on the lookout for trash and cut trees, talking to people about how to protect their food and their person from the bears. 

     When we were finished making the rounds, we would row back across the lake.  On clear nights it was pleasant, but if a storm came in, it could get dicey in a hurry, because lightning was ever present in those storms, and the last place anyone wants to be is in an aluminum rowboat in the middle of a mountain lake during a lightning storm.  More than once we raced across that lake, one of us rowing as fast as he could, the other watching the sky, tracking the lightning.

     When we got back to the cabin, we’d generally read or play cards, listen to the radio, have a beer or a little whiskey on ice, and go to sleep.  We had propane lamps and oil lamps, but generally our days were dawn to dark.  We worked hard, ate like kings, and slept soundly.

     Jim and I would work together for a couple of days, then he would get ready to hike out for his days off, leaving me to the secluded post of the Interior Headquarters.  I loved those days, in that cabin alone.  I generally had some minor one man tasks while Jim was gone, like cleaning trash down near the lean-tos, or a more humble task such as carrying a large bucket of lime up the trail along the Opalescent to Feldspar, pouring a healthy dose into each outhouse hole along the way.

     Outhouses were an important item in the high peaks, and involved quite a lot of work.  First, they were important as a means of keeping people from doing their business in random places along the trail.  This was undesirable, because with the volume of hikers in the high peaks, it wouldn’t have taken long for the areas along the trails and around the campsites and lean-tos to be littered with little white “tent cities” of disintegrating toilet paper and human feces.

Not only was this an unsightly and unwelcome part of the “Adirondack Experience”, it was also unhealthy. Everything ran into the streams, which ran into the lakes, which were already polluted with acid rain and Giardiasis, or “beaver fever’, a nasty, water borne parasite that causes intense diarrhea, gastric problems, weakness, weight loss, and has ruined many a hiker’s day. 

     As a result, the DEC built and encouraged the use of outhouses in the high peaks wilderness. It was the job of the trail crew to install and maintain them.  These outhouses, like the lean-tos, weren’t built on site.  Instead, they were prefabricated at the DEC maintenance shop at Saranac Inn and carried by helicopter sling load to their predesignated location in the high peaks trail system, where they were dropped in the woods.

     The trail crew would hike to the intended drop site to retrieve and build the outhouse.  Unfortunately for us, these outhouses rarely landed in an optimum spot, on dry ground, visible from the trail, or next to a lean-to, and it wasn’t like we were on the ground, directing traffic as the choppers dropped them into the woods. 

They would be built at the shop, disassembled and sling loaded by helicopter into the woods, unobserved, on their own schedule.  The trail crew directors, Phil and Gary, would consult with the pilot, and mark for us on a map the general location of where the pilot thought the sling load landed.  The trail crew would then hike to the location to retrieve and build the outhouse.

     We would go to the designated location and fan out in concentric circles until the sling load was found.  Sometimes we wouldn’t find it at all on the first try, and Jim would go back, at intervals, on his own, and search until he found it, or maybe the ADK boys, who had their own trail crew funded through the Adirondack Mountain Club, would stumble upon it and let Jim know its whereabouts. 

Usually, it ended up half buried in a swamp, half a mile from where it was to be erected.  Once it was located, we would carry the materials to the selected site, dig a hole as deep as we could through dirt, roots and rock, fell a small cedar tree, cut it and level it into a base, and assemble the outhouse.

     Another frequent outhouse related task, for existing outhouses, was to relocate an outhouse once its hole was adequately full.  This involved, of course, digging a new hole, building a new base, then, (ensuring no one was inside), carefully tipping the existing outhouse on its side, moving it to its new location, and filling in the old hole.

The task of filling in the old hole generally fell to the low man on the totem pole, which, the previous summer, had been me.  I’m sure there were numerous jokes made about the Regional Director’s son filling in outhouse holes, but I never heard them.

     Filling in an old outhouse hole, while very unpleasant, carried with it some responsibility, as the person filling it in had to ensure that the top fill was firm enough that no unsuspecting hiker was going to step off the trail and into a mess.  To ensure this wouldn’t happen, someone had to jump up and down on it to test it ourselves.  Rest assured, these holes were filled firmly and completely.

     Building and moving outhouses was a group task, so when I was alone, the more mundane task of dumping lime in the holes remained.  I’d hike up the trail along the Opalescent, with my day pack, an axe, a bow saw, (in case of fresh blow down), and a large pail of lime.  The lime helped with decomposition, discouraged flies and varmints, and improved the aroma of the outhouse portion of the wilderness experience.  Or so I was told.

     During the days while Jim was gone, I’d perform these mundane tasks.  I’d also spend some time at the cabin, where a surprising volume of hikers would stop by, seeking information on everything from weather to bears to trail systems and available camping sites.  The Forest Rangers and Park Rangers would also occasionally stop by, to share a meal, information, and coordinate on trouble spots in the trail system that would need our attention.

      In the evenings, before dark, but after I had finished my dinner, I would go across the lake to the cluster of lean-tos along the Opalescent, between Lake Colden and the Flowed Lands.  There, I would caution the hikers on their use of the land, and proper precautions to avoid problems with bears. 

Over the course of that summer, it seemed that Cliff had gained quite a reputation. Many hikers had heard about the bear and had questions.  While I hadn’t seen the bear, I had seen and cleaned plenty of drag sites, and enjoyed telling tales of the paw prints we’d seen on the ground, and claw or tooth marks we had seen in cans and debris.  People were appropriately impressed.  I was itching to see the bear myself. “Cliff the bear” was quickly becoming “Cliff the Lake Colden legend.”

     One particular evening, not unlike most others in that basin in the high peaks, between Colden and Algonquin, with Iroquois to the west, and Marcy looming beyond Colden to the east, I made my way around the lake for my evening patrol.  It was cloudy, as I recall, and July warm.  July warm, in the evening, in the mountains, is a comfortable kind of cool – no jacket required, if you are moving, but a friendly kind of chill that makes you sneak in a little closer when you are sitting around a campfire.

     For some reason, that night I decided to walk around the lake instead of taking the rowboat.  I did that sometimes.  It was only a short hike, maybe half a mile, and relatively fast and easy.  I threw a flashlight, jacket, and raincoat into my daypack, where there was always a map, compass, and first aid kit as well, filled my water bottle, and was on my way.

     There was nothing particularly noteworthy going on that night.  Folks were making their camps in the lean-tos along the Opalescent “River” (more of a glorified stream at that elevation, except in spring, when the runoff came roaring off the mountain).  I crossed the dam, making the usual rounds.  By the time I had finished chatting with people in their camps, it was getting dark, so I finished up for the evening, crossed back over the dam, and headed for the cabin.

     When it gets dark up there in that basin, it gets really dark, especially on a cloudy night, or a night with no moon.  This was one of those nights.  I was a short distance down the trail along the lake when I decided to pull out my flashlight.

I was comfortable in the dark, even the pitch dark of the mountains. I knew the trail well. But I was moving at a pretty good pace, and there were plenty of rocks and roots that could easily send even an experienced hiker familiar with the terrain sprawling in the muck, or worse, cause a nasty fall or twisted ankle.  Besides, in under the thick canopy of balsam and cedar that dominated the shoreline, it was more than dark, reaching that thick sort of blackness that walls itself around you.

     I flipped on the flashlight.  It sputtered weakly for a moment, then died.  I shook it and flipped it on and off, to no avail.  The batteries were dead, my fault for not having checked that before I left the cabin.  The useless flashlight in one hand, I continued on in the dark, making my way gingerly around the lake, over rocks and roots, and through the ever present mud.

     I reached a point about halfway around the lake, when suddenly I stopped, dead in my tracks.  I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel a presence in front of me, directly in front of me, on the trail. 

It was big.  I could feel its bigness, not ten feet away.  It was big, and it was alive-I could hear it breathing.  Loud, labored breathing, in and out, sounding something like a horse when it’s lathered and breathing hard.  But this wasn’t a horse.  I knew what it was.  I knew who it was, immediately-instinctively- it was Cliff, the bear, directly in front of me, on the trail, alone, in the pitch-black dark. Suddenly, Cliff’s Lake Colden legend was real.

     I stood, motionless for a moment, trying to stay calm.  The bear seemed to move a little closer, slowly.  I could hear it breathing in my scent as I stood in the trail.  It gave a few short snorts as it processed my scent.  As it moved closer, I could see a reflection off the backs of its eyes, nothing else, just the reflection.  They were even with mine.

I didn’t know if the bear was standing up, or on all fours, but at that moment I knew that if I reached out my hand, I could have touched it, which meant it could touch me.  I didn’t know what the bear’s intentions were at that moment, and  I really didn’t want to find out.

      I stood very still, and decided, without much conscious thought really, that I wanted the bear to know exactly where I was, and what I was. So I yelled – not screamed – but yelled at the bear in a scolding kind of voice, like a parent would use when chastising a child.

“Ha! – Ya! Go on Cliff- Scram. Get out of Here!- Ha! –Ya!” Like that.  I raised my voice, but didn’t move an inch, giving the bear every opportunity to choose its own path, hopefully not through, but around, me.

     Slowly, I could hear the bear move off the path, crunching softly through the brush and leaves to my left, uphill from the lake.  I could still hear its heavy breathing.  It didn’t move far, just above me off the side of the trail, watching me with its eyes and its nose.

Once I felt the bear’s presence leave the trail, and was confident that I had its location pinpointed off the trail above me, I decided to move.  I began walking, not running, carefully at first, then picking up speed.  I never quite ran, at least I don’t remember running, but I made my way back to the cabin as quickly as possible.  Cliff did not appear to follow.

     Once inside the cabin, I congratulated myself on how calmly I had handled the encounter with Cliff.  Then I looked down.  My shirt was drenched in sweat.  My heart was pounding .  I collapsed for a moment into a chair, to collect myself.  I’d just had my desired encounter with Cliff, up close and personal, at night, in the dark, alone.  I pondered the moment for quite a while.  

     I recounted my tale to Jim, when he got back, and to my family, upon my return home from a week in the mountains.  Cliff continued to roam that area of the Marcy basin, and hikers continued to have their food bags challenged and campsites ransacked, whether by Cliff, raccoon, or other marauding bears.

As Cliff became more brazen, our concerns and warnings grew stronger.  Could the bear be re-located?  Apparently not.  Not only were there serious logistical issues in re-locating a five hundred pound bear, but bears have incredible range, and many bears, once re-located, return to where they were taken from.

Further, Cliff had become accustomed to being near people, and identified them as a source of food.  To re-locate the bear would be to re-locate the problem.  The bear was part of the wilderness. Cliff belonged there, but safety was becoming a very real concern.

     Later that summer, about the time I was ready to return to college, my father informed me that one of the rangers had shot the bear, a black bear of over five hundred pounds, a male.  It had been done quietly, on his order, to avoid the inevitable tragedy of a human- bear encounter.

A controversial decision, no doubt, if it became public knowledge. But if nothing was done and someone were injured or killed by Cliff, it would have been worse. Someone had to make the hard decisions. At the time, that someone was my dad, and I understood.

“Tom Monroe- DEC Regional Director”

“My Mentor, Best Friend & Father”

     I’ve often thought of Cliff over the years, and that night, in the dark, along Lake Colden’s shore.  While I never saw the bear in daylight, I’ve always felt a kindred spirit to the creature, as we both patrolled the terrain that summer around those high mountain lakes.  We each left the mountains.  I went back to college, on into the army and the life that followed.  Cliff went wherever nature’s creatures go after life on earth.  Each of us, in our own way, left the high peaks due to the demands of an adult human world.                                                                

     That Christmas, my mother made me a stuffed black bear.  I named it Cliff.  I still have it.  As long as I live, Cliff lives, somehow, in a space in my soul, in the rocky ridges above the Opalescent, overlooking the lean-tos, the trails, and the cabin beside that high mountain lake. 

 

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(Edited version, as it first appeared in Adirondack Life Magazine’s August 2015 “Summer Fun” Issue, pg. 70, as its “Barkeater” Selection)

CLIFF THE BEAR
“A Memorable Encounter At Lake Colden”

WE ALL HAVE EXPERIENCES that stay within us. Some are firsts—first kiss, first home run. Some are tragic. Some are bookmarks. For me, one of these involved a summer job, a night along a High Peaks trail and a black bear named Cliff.

It was 1984. I’d returned home to Saranac Lake from my junior year at Cornell University. My father worked for the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) as director of Region 5, headquartered in Ray Brook; no doubt that was a big factor in my landing a job.

The summer before, I had worked for the DEC’s trail crew. We hiked the trails, picking up garbage; clearing blowdown; building water bars, stringer bridges and ladders; and maintaining the outhouses and lean-tos. We spent time at the Lake Colden Interior Outpost under the guidance of caretaker Jim Waters. A Paul Smith’s College grad in his mid-20s, Jim was a good leader, well organized, tolerant, with a focus on quality and an emphasis on safety.

The outpost included a cabin, storage barn, dock with a canoe and
rowboat plus an outhouse. A wooden bridge crossed Cold Brook flowing
down from Iroquois Peak. There was a clearing where DEC helicopters
dropped off propane, tools and supplies too heavy to carry in.

We had a two-way radio connected to the DEC dispatch center and
a telephone. On those nights when the clouds hung low between Colden
and Algonquin and lightning cracked the sky, each strike would make the
phone go ping, ping. None of us would pick up the receiver.

One of our tasks was bringing a new phone line to Lake Colden. It
was strung on telephone poles from South Meadow to the Marcy Dam
outpost. From there it ran on the ground, buried where it crossed trails
and streams. At Avalanche Lake we took the cable across in a rowboat.
We dropped the line to the bottom, anchored by concrete blocks. At the
lake’s far end, the cable continued overground.

At the end of the day we would hike back to the cabin, where we’d grill
steaks or pork chops. We’d sit around after dinner and listen to the older guys tell stories about rescues and encounters with bears.

The next summer, when I was offered work almost exclusively out of
the interior headquarters, I jumped at the chance. My father and I had hunted on the ridges and valleys off the western slope of Phelps Mountain. I’d killed my first buck there, gotten lost and un-lost there, and spent many nights under the stars. To me it was home.

I hiked up the truck trail, stopping to rest at Marcy Dam. Then I went through Avalanche Pass to Avalanche Lake, past Trickle Falls. The water at the top of the pass drips a few drops at a time off a
moss-covered boulder. One splash to the right and it ends up in the St. Lawrence Seaway, one splash to the left and it ends up in the Hudson River, its destiny determined by the wind.

I’d then hike around the lake on the trail hewn into the rocks, with the Trap Dike slicing down Colden’s massive shoulder and Avalanche and Algonquin rising hard above me.

Jim always had projects for us. Twelve of the 46 High Peaks are within
a day’s hike of the outpost, and we were responsible for the trails to all of them. The brooks along those trails were so cold that some overhanging rocks had undersides coated with ice even in July.

We’d take a couple of beers and secure them in a deep pool as we worked our way up the trail. On our way back down, black-fly eaten and drenched in sweat, we’d crack a cold one.

In the evenings we would row across Lake Colden to patrol the lean-tos and campsites, encouraging hikers to take their garbage out with them, not to use soap or shampoo in the lakes, not to cut trees, and to secure their food so that it, and they, were at reduced risk from mischievous raccoons, but more importantly, bears.

Raccoons were a nuisance, but bears were a problem. A careless hiker could invite trouble by cooking bacon, sausage or almost anything over an open fire. The smoky aroma drew the bears; they’d follow the scent to its source, right into some unsuspecting camper’s tent, pack or sleeping bag.

Raccoons made a mess, usually right at the site. But bears would drag a food bag into the woods, leaving a path of debris and a cache of garbage. We found tuna cans with holes bitten in them and sometimes footprints giving us an idea of the size of the bear.

One especially large bear had taken up residence. Jim named it “Cliff,” after Cliff Mountain, a trailless peak that was one of the original 46, but had been determined to be about 60 feet shy of 4,000. The bear lived in the rocky crevices of that mountain, which offered a convenient overview of, and hiding place from, the campsites at Colden.

Cliff had become accustomed to people and increasingly persistent in
claiming their food. We educated hikers on how to hang their food—high up, between two trees. Bears can climb trees and even bring them down. At least with food bags hung, the bears’ attention was away from where people were sleeping.

When we were finished making the rounds we rowed back across the lake. On clear nights it was pleasant, but if a storm came, the last place anyone wants to be is in an aluminum rowboat in the middle of a mountain lake. More than once we raced across that lake, one of us rowing as fast as he could, the other tracking the lightning.

Jim and I would work together for a couple of days, then he would hike out for time off, leaving me to the secluded post. I loved those days alone. I had some minor one-man tasks like cleaning trash near the lean-tos or a more humble job, such as carrying a bucket of lime up the trail along the Opalescent to Feldspar Brook, pouring a healthy dose into each outhouse hole.

Privies were important in the High Peaks. Like the lean-tos, these weren’t
built on site, but were prefabricated at the DEC maintenance shop at Saranac Inn, disassembled and carried by helicopter to the High Peaks, where they were dropped in the woods. The crew would hike to the intended site to retrieve and build the structure.

Unfortunately these outhouses rarely landed in an optimum spot—on dry ground, visible from the trail or next to a lean-to—and it wasn’t like we were on the ground directing traffic as the choppers dropped them. The trail crew director marked on a map the general location where the pilot thought the load landed.

We’d go to the designated location and fan out in concentric circles until
the sling load was found. Sometimes we wouldn’t find it at all on the first try, and Jim would go back on his own to search. Usually it ended up half-buried in a swamp, half a mile from where it was to be erected. We would carry the materials to the site, dig a hole as deep as we could through roots and rock, fell a small cedar tree, cut it and level it into a base, and assemble the privy.

Another task was relocating an outhouse once it was full. This involved
digging a new hole, building a new base, then, (ensuring no one was inside),
carefully tipping the structure on its side, moving it and filling in the old
hole. This generally fell to the low man on the totem pole, which, the previous summer, had been me.

Filling in an old outhouse hole, while very unpleasant, carried with it some responsibility. The person doing it had to ensure that the top was firm enough so no unsuspecting hiker would step off the trail and into a mess.
At the cabin a surprising volume of hikers would stop, seeking information
on everything from weather to bears to trails and camping sites. The forest
rangers would also come to share a meal and coordinate on trouble spots
that would need our attention.

Before dark I would go across the lake to the cluster of lean-tos along the
Opalescent, between Lake Colden and the Flowed Lands. I talked to hikers on their use of the land, and tell them how to avoid problems with bears.

That summer Cliff had gained quite a reputation. While I hadn’t seen him
I had cleaned plenty of drag sites and enjoyed telling tales of the paw prints
we’d seen and claw or tooth marks we found in cans and debris. People were appropriately impressed. I was itching to see the bear myself.

One evening, not unlike most others in that basin, I made my patrol. It was cloudy and July warm. July warm, in the evening, in the mountains, is a comfortable kind of cool—no jacket required if you are moving, but a friendly kind of chill that makes you sneak in a little closer around a campfire.

That night I decided to walk around the lake instead of taking the rowboat. It was only a short hike, maybe half a mile, and relatively easy. By the time I had finished chatting with people it was getting dark, so I crossed back over the dam and headed for the cabin.

When it gets dark up there it gets really dark, especially on a cloudy night or a night with no moon. This was one of those nights. I was a short distance down the trail when I decided to pull out my flashlight. I was comfortable in the dark and knew the trail well, but I was moving at a pretty good pace, and there were plenty of rocks and roots.

I flipped on my flashlight. It sputtered weakly, then died. I flipped it on
and off. The batteries were dead. I continued on, making my way
gingerly. I reached a point about halfway around the lake when suddenly I
stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t see anything, but I could
feel a presence in front of me. I could feel its bigness, not 10 feet away.

I could hear it breathing, loud, labored breathing, sounding like a horse. But this wasn’t a horse. It was Cliff, the bear. I stood motionless, trying to stay calm. The bear seemed to move a little closer. It gave a few short snorts as it processed my scent. I could see a reflection off the backs of its eyes, nothing else. They were even with mine. I didn’t know if the bear was standing up or on all fours. If I reached out my hand I could have touched it, which meant it could touch me.

I wanted the bear to know exactly where I was, and what I was, so I yelled in a scolding voice, like a parent would
use when chastising a child, “Ha! Ya! Go on, Cliff! Scram! Get out of here! Ha! Ya!”

I didn’t move an inch, giving the bear every opportunity to choose its own way, hopefully not through me. The bear moved off the path, crunching softly through the brush. I could still hear heavy breathing. It didn’t move far.

Once I was confident that I had its location pinpointed off the trail above me, I moved, walking, not running, carefully at first, then picking up speed. I made my way back to the cabin and Cliff did not follow.

I congratulated myself on how calmly I had handled the encounter. Then I looked down. My shirt was drenched in sweat. My heart was pounding. I’d just had my desired encounter with Cliff, up close and personal, in the dark, alone.

Cliff continued to roam the Marcy basin, and hikers continued to have
their campsites ransacked. Our warnings grew stronger. Could the bear be
relocated? Apparently not. Besides serious logistical issues in relocating a 500- pound bear, the animals have incredible range. Many bears return to where they were taken from. To relocate the bear would be to relocate the problem. Cliff was part of the wilderness and belonged there, but safety was becoming a real issue.

About the time I was ready to return to college, my father informed me that one of the rangers had shot a male black bear of over 500 pounds. It had been done quietly on his order, a controversial decision.

I’ve often thought of Cliff and that night. I’ve always felt a kindred spirit
to the creature, as we both patrolled the terrain that summer around those
high mountain lakes. We each left the mountains. I went back to college, on
into the Army and the life that followed. Cliff went wherever nature’s creatures go after life on Earth.

That Christmas my mother made me a stuffed black bear. I named it Cliff. I still have it. As long as I live, Cliff lives, in a space in my soul, in the rocky ridges above the Opalescent, overlooking the lean-tos, the trails and the cabin beside that high mountain lake.

***Dick Monroe wrote “A Place in Time” in our 2014 Annual Guide to the Great Outdoors***

(Adirondack Life Magazine Article End Note)

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO