The Bear

Photo taken by First people

The Bear
A face to face encounter with a bear is an unforgettable experience. It was truly the scariest moment of my life. It becomes even more frightening as time passes and I get older and become more familiar with the physical capabilities of a bear. Watching documentaries has taught me how aggressive a bear can become whenever it feels threatened, and how fast a bear can run. This memorable encounter with a wild animal took place one summer morning a couple of years ago while on a camping and fishing weekend at a friend’s cabin located in the mountains of Pennsylvania, about one and a half hours away from my house. It was a nice day, and the skies were blue and the trees were green. I gathered my fishing pole, and some snacks, and walk the country road to join my friends at the lake, as I had many other times before. However, little did I know that my walk to the lake that day would be interrupted halfway through whenever I unexpectedly came upon a black bear. This encounter left a lasting impression on me because of the sudden and unexpected nature of the encounter, the helpless feelings of fear and danger, and the respect for animals and nature that I have developed since that day.

My father and I were staying at a cabin in the mountains with some friends, where we liked to camp and fish. It is a fun place to go and experience nature. One summer morning a few years ago, I experienced way more nature than I had planned during that trip. The cabin is located in the Laurel Mountains and it is a very beautiful country setting. I like the open land around the group of cabins where we stay, and there is a forest and several lakes in the area. Fishing is fun, and there is a nice lake where we have always caught a lot of fish about a quarter of a mile away. We walk the dirt road to get to the lake. The road is hilly, and it goes past a couple of farms. One of the farms has horses in the field, and I like looking at them whenever I walk by. Passing the farm with the horses, the road goes downhill, and turns to the left at the bottom. Once you are at the bottom of the hill, you see a large field to your left as you walk around the bend in the road there. I always glance toward the field when I pass by, and continue walking forward toward the lake. This particular summer morning, I glanced to my left at the bottom of the hill, and then stopped suddenly. There would be no walking any further that morning, and I glanced again to my left and stared. I couldn’t believe what I unexpectedly saw sitting in the field, and surrounded by the beauty and quiet of the natural setting.

Up until that point, I could only try to imagine what it would be like to come face to face with a large black bear. I remember feeling and hearing my heart beat faster as I quickly came to the realization that I was abut fifty yards away from a large and dangerous wild animal. I know that I wasn’t standing there for more than a minute, but it seemed like I was frozen still for a very long time. I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I knew what I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t about to take one more step forward along the road. I wasn’t really concerned about what to do if the bear came after me. Somehow, I believed that if I stayed still, that the bear would also stay seated on the ground. Obviously, I underestimated the danger of a bear encounter, but it is probably better that I knew little about wild animals. Otherwise, I may have panicked even more than I already had panicked, and startled the bear. I was most concerned that the bear would immediately chase me if and when I began to walk away. So, I made the decision not to walk away, but to run away. Run away as fast as I could, that is. I remember turning and sprinting back up that hill as fast as I could, with my fishing rod in my hand. Looking back, I’m not sure why I kept the rod with me. It slowed me down, but perhaps I thought that I could fight the bear off with the skinny fishing rod. It seems ridiculous now, but a flimsy stick for a weapon was better than no weapon at all. I’m athletic, but I am not the fastest guy around. However, I don’t think I ever ran faster in my life than I did that day. I ran all the way up that hill, past the horses and I didn’t look back until I hit the top of the hill. What a relief it was to look back and only see some dust and nothing else on the road. The bear stayed in the field, and I was safe. I began walking backwards until I caught my breath, and then I turned around and ran all the way back to the cabin to tell my father and his friends about the bear.

As the result of experiencing a face to face encounter with a wild animal, I developed a new respect for animals and a deeper understanding of nature. When I saw the bear, I realized that I was in the bear’s world and in the presence of something very powerful and dangerous. The mountains and the forest are the natural domain of animals. We are intruders into their world, and the more that we learn and understand about the behavior of animals and the workings of nature, the more successful we will be in terms of enjoying the outdoors experience. Since that bear encounter, I have learned a great deal more about bears and nature. Most of this information is from watching nature shows and documentaries on television. Bears and many other wild animals will avoid contact with humans. However, there are situations where the bear may feel threatened, and an encounter could become tragic for a human. I now realize that I was not in great danger that day, and that I could have quietly and slowly walked backwards around the bend and out of sight, and continue back up the road without being harmed. I also realize that if the bear wanted to attack me, I could not have escaped. Whenever I saw how fast a bear could run on a documentary, I became terrified. I didn’t know that they were that fast, and that fishing rod wasn’t going to do anything but make the bear more angry. I placed myself in a very dangerous situation, and I was not prepared for any animal encounters, especially a bear. My father and the other adults underestimated the dangers of nature and we were not cautious and smart about walking unprotected through the woods and countryside. Fortunately, my bear encounter was harmless, although very frightening. As a result, I would never consider going into the wild without studying the animals that live there, and preparing myself to be safe and protected in case of another unexpected encounter with a large and dangerous animal.

In conclusion, as I recall the events of that day, I realize how fortunate I was to encounter a bear only a short distance away from me, and make decisions to avoid the bear that did not result in my being attacked. Sudden and unexpected encounters with wild animals can be avoided, although not completely eliminated, with increased knowledge about the behavior of animals such as bears, and about nature in general. These types of encounters leave a lasting memory of the feeling of intense fear and of hopelessness in the face of danger. Wild animal encounters cannot be fully understood until we experience them. I now have a much greater respect for bears and other wild animals, as well as the power of nature. Although I will probably never encounter a bear in the wild again, this experience has left me with a deeper understanding of the fact that man and animals share the same world, and that we will benefit from the knowledge of animals and nature, if and when we have a sudden and unexpected encounter with a wild animal.

Whiteout

The Whiteout
My most memorable experience with nature took place last winter. I was traveling to Thiel College for a football recruiting visit. Thiel College is located in Northern Pennsylvania about two hours away from my house. My father was driving us in his truck towards the college early that Saturday morning in February, and the skies were clear and the roads were dry. The trip up seemed normal at first, as it was expectedly very cold out and also very windy. It began snowing very lightly when we got about halfway through our trip. As we progressed further toward Thiel College, the weather became worse and a lot more dangerous to drive in. I received a phone call from the Thiel football coach who told me that we should probably turn around and head back home. He said that there was a whiteout up where they were. As we neared our exit off of Interstate 79 North, the weather took an immediate turn for the worse. We began to drive along a country road. The next hour was spent trying to find our way through a phenomenon of nature in the form of a blinding snowstorm known as a whiteout, which affected me because of the power of nature, the danger of the experience, and the lesson of survival that I came away with that day.

The power of nature can be suprisingly sudden and unpredictable. I have experienced the beauty and quiet of nature many times before. However, I had only experienced the power of nature in the form of disasters such as the high winds of tornadoes, the deadly currents and waves of hurricanes, and the extreme temperatures and snowfalls of blizzards in news stories on television. That all changed with the sudden change in weather that February day. Up until then, I could only try to imagine what it would be like to be exposed to the extremes of nature. At first I wasn’t really concerned about the whiteout because I never experienced one before and I underestimated the severity of it. Also, at the time when the coach called, it wasn’t snowing very badly where we were. Therefore, we decided to keep on driving and hope that it would pass through before we got there. However, we were wrong. When we turned off the highway we entered on to a smaller road. We traveled down that road for about one or two miles until we literally could not see more than three feet in front of us. All of a sudden I realized that we were in trouble. My dad immediately turned the car around and headed back. While we were traveling back, we both had our heads out the window trying to see the road. I was amazed at how the wind did not stop continuously blowing the snow all around our truck. It took us about an hour before we were able to drive out of the whiteout area and see clearly again. There was a lot of debate going on between my father and me as we were trying to understand the severity of our situation, and make decisions regarding our safety. My first experience with the awesome power of nature was truly becoming a memorable experience.

It is a dangerous experience whenever you feel the helplessness of being in the presence of something very powerful in nature such as a total whiteout. I began to sense these feelings whenever I could not see more than three feet in front of us, and the winds and snow kept steadily blowing across the front of our truck. We had to worry about turns in the road and other vehicles. If we failed to recognize a turn in the road, we could drive into a tree or pond, as well as hitting any one of a whole lot of other objects. In order to help ourselves, my father and I rolled our windows down, so that we could listen for other vehicles, because my Dad was especially fearful that another vehicle would hit us. The option to just sit still and let the whiteout pass was discussed, but we both agreed that it didn’t feel safe to put the car in park because we did not know exactly where we were, and because nobody else would be able to see us until it was too late. Also, we definitely did not think it was a good idea to park the car and get out of it and walk off the road. I remember the feeling of a sense of continuous danger throughout that whiteout experience, which will serve as a lasting reminder to me of the power of nature.

Looking back at that experience, I learned a valuable lesson on how to survive a sudden and unexpected situation. Having never even heard of a whiteout, let alone ever seeing one, we were learning as we went through the event. Nature was not going to wait for us to feel comfortable with the whiteout. My father and I could not depend on our vision to find our way to safety. As a result, we called on our other senses such as hearing in order to increase the awareness of our surroundings and find our way out of the whiteout to safety. During the time we were stuck in the whiteout I was actually very worried that we could possibly get trapped in or even worse get hit by another car because even with the lights on, we could not see anything. Even the thought of leaving the car parked on the side of the road was dangerous, because the visibility was zero and other vehicles could not possibly know if they were completely on the road or not. In addition, there were many large eighteen wheeler trucks on and near the interstate that day. It was a very dangerous situation and one that I underestimated a lot. If we would have been cautious and smart about the situation we would have heeded the warning of the football coach, and we would not have even attempted to continue on our trip. Fortunately, we made good decisions to safely overcome the whiteout and learn a valuable lesson on the type of respect and thought process necessary to survive the sudden onset of the power of nature.

In conclusion, the power of nature is something that cannot be fully understood until we experience it. That is when we will truly realize how scared that we will become whenever we are finding ourselves in great danger. From this experience I learned that nature can be very dangerous because we were almost trapped in the whiteout and could have possibly been hit by another vehicle. There is no easy or obvious way to safety in the midst of a whiteout. Decisions are made to attempt to reach safety, but I now realize that for the most part, we were at the mercy of the power of nature and would only be truly safe whenever the whiteout phenomena passed our location. Who knows how long that storm would have lasted? It is possible that we could have been trapped in an isolated location for a whole day or even longer. This situation certainly could have easily been life threatening, but we were lucky and survived the whiteout without damage to our vehicle or injury to ourselves. We may not be so lucky the next time. As a result, it is imperative that in the future we pay extra close attention to weather reports and take precautions to avoid placing ourselves in these types of situations. It is most amazing to me how sudden nature can change from something very ordinary and familiar to something very powerful, dangerous, and uncertain.

Volcanic Eruptions

Volcanic Eruptions
The word volcano generates a familiar image in our minds. It is the image of a large land mass or mountain that has a wide opening at the top and spews out red hot molten lava and huge clouds of smoke whenever it erupts. A volcano is the symbol of the awesome power of nature, and people who live near one are fearful of an eruption. A volcanic eruption is a natural phenomenon that most of us have become familiar with through the television, or from reading books. Most of us have not personally experienced the sight of a volcano, much less the fury of a sudden eruption from one. Furthermore, the average person is not aware of the many factors that go into describing and classifying this natural phenomenon. Taking a closer look at this phenomenon reveals a detailed variety of ways to describe volcanoes and their eruptions. These descriptions identify the sizeand shape of volcanoes, and the wide nature of volcanic eruptions ranging from the quiet oozing of molten lava to violent eruptions. Volcanoes are a complex phenomena that are classified by activity levels, types of volcanic eruptions, and the basic underlying physical science of volcanic activity that is common to each of them.

The main types of volcanoes according to activity levels are known as Active, Intermittent, Dormant, and Extinct volcanoes (Volcanic Eruptions). An Active volcano is one in which there is a constant state of eruption taking place. An Intermittent volcano is one in which eruptions occur on a somewhat regular basis, with periods of inactivity in between. A Dormant volcano is one that is inactive, meaning that there is no observable eruptive activity present. However, Dormant volcanoes have not been inactive over a long enough period of time to safely and accurately designate them as ones that definitely will not erupt again. An Extinct volcano is one in which there are no recorded eruptions as far back as records have been kept (Volcanic Eruptions). The activity levels of volcanoes are important to determine, so that people can determine which volcanoes are safe to visit or live near, and which ones are dangerous and unpredictable.

Volcanic eruptions are not typically viewed as occurring as many types of eruptions, but rather as a standard phenomenon of lava and smoke being ejected from the mouth of the volcano. However, there are several specific volcanic eruption characteristics which lead to them being designated as specific types of volcanic eruptions. They are commonly classified as Hawaiian, Pelean, Vulcanian, Strombolian, or Vesuvian. A Hawaiian eruption is characterized by lava flows which are generated by the escape of molten hot lava through fissures along the slopes or sides of volcanoes, or vents which have the lava shoot high into the air before returning to form lava lakes. As a result, they produce a wide series of lava streams and some lakes which feed these streams. Many tourists visit such volcanoes in Hawaii each year, probably without ever realizing the exact type of volcano that they are viewing. A Pelean eruption is characterized by a great blast of molten lava, ash, lava, and dust which rises above the volcano, then falls back and rapidly flows down the slopes of the volcano. The powerful explosion and massive amount of volcanic debris and gas can cause great destruction to the surrounding land and people. The blast and its lava are very bright and sometimes referred to as glowing. This is obviously a type of volcano that nobody would want to visit. A Vulcanian eruption is described as one in which a sudden violent and noisy eruption takes place as the gases force a cloud of ash, which is dense and steaming hot, high into the air above the rim of the volcano. Again, it is probably not known to a person who views this volcano as to the type that it is classified, other than the fact that it is scary and dangerous. Strombolian eruptions are intermittent because the magma is thicker and this prohibits the gases from freely escaping. Instead, the intermittent release of gas causes clumps or bombs of thick molten lava to be discharged from the volcano. The lava flows down the sides of the volcano in distinct streams of hot lava towards the base of the volcano. A Vesuvian eruption is characterized by a violent eruption of large amounts of gases that contain ash and result in the formation of a large wide cloud that hovers around and extends into the sky above the volcano (Watson). These vlassifications of types of volcanoes are important to scientists, and mech less familiar or important to the average person.

The basic underlying physical science of the mechanism of a typical volcanic eruption involves a process that displays some or all of the following common components. These include Magma, Lava, Gas, Ash, and Volcanic ash. Magma is very hot molten rock which is formed of the earth’s crust. It is ejected from the depths of the volcano during an eruption as the result of pressure changes. Lava is magma which has been erupted from the volcano and has now come in contact with the atmosphere or the surrounding Earth. Moving lava is termed a lava flow. Gases such as carbon dioxide and steam are emitted from the rising magma and they saturate the immediate atmosphere. These can be poisonous gases and they can occur at a density great enough to cause death through suffocation. Volcanic ash is very tiny pieces of volcanic rock that is released during the eruption, and is either a solid or in the form of a liquid or molten state. These basic terms and concepts are present within all eruptions (Watson). As a result, volcanic activity is a summation of a common and predictable underlying physical science that leads to a phenomena that is present in each type of volcano and each classification of volcanic eruption.

In conclusion, society benefits from the work of scientisit who develop a deeper understanding of volcanoes and classify them according to activity levels and types of eruptions. This allows people and nations the opportunity to make decisions regarding which volcanoes are safe to visit and live near, and which are unstable and dangerous. There are several types of volcanoes that produce various types of eruptions. However, even though there is this variety with classifying volcanoes, the basic mechanism and components of the physical science characteristic of each are similar. As a result, we think of all volcanoes as being large elevated land masses or mountains with a large opening at the top, and all volcanic eruptions as violent events that result in large explosions and smoke and hot molten lava being shot up into the air and flowing down the sides of the mountains to the flat lands below. It is true that a volcanic eruption is arguably the most powerful natural phenomena on Earth. Fortunately most of us have never experienced this devastating force of nature, and we never will. Interestingly though, volcanoes and their eruptions are much more complex events. There is much more to learn regarding all of nature, and scientists will continue to study volcanoes and their eruptions in an effort to make the earth safer from natural disasters and to discover unknown facts about the world in which we live.

Works Cited

1. Watson, John." Types of Volcanic Eruptions." Unites States Geological Survey. 5 Feb. 1997 <http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/volc/eruptions.html>.
2. " Volcanic Eruptions." Think Quest. 8 Oct. 2008 < http://library.thinkquest.org/17457/volcanoes/erupts.php>.