Grizzly Repellent Characters #3

As I have written at least once before, the magical thing about travel is that you have an increased opportunity to meet interesting and diverse people.  When I was young my travels usually brought me to the homes of other's parents and that meant good food and good stories. Now that I am a 'gray beard' I usually meet the odd ducks and adventurers, like us.


We passed this fellow at right in the photo above at the bottom of the highway.  He was trying to hitch a ride up the mountain on a cool Canada morning.  His funny bear hat drew my attention as well as his smile.  Hubby was not that comfortable about stopping for him and drove on by.  As the fates would have it we met him at the bottom of the Larch Valley hike just a little while later.  The park service had been seeing grizzlies in the area and had a sign at the bottom of this rather strenuous hike telling people that they had to hike in groups of four.  (I think since this was one of the most popular hikes in the area at this time of year that any grizzly would attack only because the crowds going up and down were driving him nuts!)

The young man asked if he could walk up with us.  Hubby commented that made us only three, but I argued that this tall young man counted easily as two if we encountered a grizzly.  Since there was no ranger in sight nor any sign indicating a fine, we started off as three.


To protect his privacy I will call him Sandy.  The first thing I learned from Sandy is that he taught CPR in Australia.  He went on to say that the CPR exercise really did not work, but the electronic defibrillator would be the tool that will save someone's life and then add CPR after that!  He told me if I ever had to use one to not worry about lack of training as these AEDs are well designed for success.  Of course both my husband and I were panting and had to stop every 10 minutes on this steep trail to catch our breath...so this was a little more than idle chatter for us.  He was such a sweetie, waiting for us so patiently each time we paused to take in the views.


The more we climbed, the more I learned about Sandy.  He recently was working as a bartender and left his job to travel around the world until the money ran out.  He was almost certain he could get his job back upon his return.  Then I later learned he actually was just a few hours short of a Ph.D. in biotech and had given that goal up because he realized he did not want to write grants for the rest of his life.  He also was not a rule freak and clearly the pharmaceutical industry was full of rules for its researchers.  Sandy was young and free and currently enjoying the life of a vagabond.  He had parents and siblings back in Australia that he spoke of fondly.  We talked about politics and science and nature on the way down the hill.


Since his camera battery had died I took a number of pictures of him in the larches (I will post something about this interesting conifer on my other blog).  I offered to tag him on FB and he gave me his name.  When I got home and brought up his profile, he had written on it that he liked men.  When I saw this it made me feel very odd and embarrased because I had asked him if he had a girlfriend waiting for him at the end of this sojourn.  We always see the world through our eyes and I can imagine how many times some little old lady sees this cute charmer and wants to fix him up with a young lady and asks if he has a wife or girlfriend.  So tedious, I am sure.


Sandy was on his way to do volunteer work in South America for some organization when we parted at the end of the day.  I would love to run into him again some day and see how his adventure unfolded.  (I'll bet you thought this post was going to be about a grizzly...;-))