A sliver of panic crept into Tonya as her most aggressive hike since the pandemic lockdowns started feeling skewed toward disaster. She had become smitten with the adventure and freedom people could get from hiking in 2018. While she’d been ‘caged’ indoors in 2020, her determination to press the limits of her wilderness treks grew beyond the margins of incremental cautious excursions into a full-blown rambling obsession. All she’d planned this time was to head North. But suddenly, Tonya was starting to regret her casual disregard for natural dangers having noticed some large bear scat along the trail. All she was armed with was bear spray.
In the middle of her first night, she was startled awake by a huge snarling grizzly bear with teeth the size of chair spindles that simply stepped from the absolute blackness into the light of her dwindling campfire! All she could do was throw her supplies one way and flee in the opposite direction.
After aimlessly running for a long time, she was relieved that the bear hadn’t followed her but now she was hopelessly lost and emptyhanded as dawn was breaking. If she hadn’t heard a roaring brook and nimbly made her way to it, Tonya may never have survived.
There were waterfalls upstream to her right and a gentle slope along the downstream side which, as every hiker knows, leads to civilization. It took only 18 hours for her to find safety by stumbling upon a remote hunting lodge beside that stream. It was there that she was told many tales of others who hadn’t been so fortunate.
https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2023/04/02/wordle-599/
Sillyfrog's Blog 
Very interesting story. Beautiful pic.
Good story.
Thanks, Di. 🙂