Author: Michael Cravens, AWF's Advocacy and Conservation Director

Michael Cravens is the Advocacy and Conservation Director for the Arizona Wildlife Federation and Vice Chair of Arizona Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. A dedicated hunter and outdoorsman, he lives in Flagstaff with his wife, two kids, and their German short-haired pointer and wire-haired dachshund.

After wrapping up the Annual Family Squirrel Camp, I took an additional week off work to try to find a bear to bring home for the freezer and dinner table.

The week was a whirlwind of ups and downs. I started out with my colleague Christian, AWF's Public Lands Coordinator, spending three days searching the desert for prickly pears and then the canyons for acorns. No matter how hard we searched, we just couldn’t find any bear food. And if you can’t find the food, you generally don’t find the bears.

Christian headed south, and I moved up in elevation for a couple of days on my own. Still no food, but I did spot several mature mule deer bucks and some beautiful golden aspens.

Finally, my son Fielding was free from school and able to join me for a few days exploring a new wilderness area. My wife Mary and my daughter Norah hiked up with us for the day and hauled some extra water, since Fielding and I planned to stay in the mountains for a couple of nights.

We enjoyed a family picnic while glassing the surrounding slopes. After lunch, Mary and Norah headed back down to the trailhead, and Fielding and I continued on our hunt.

It didn’t take long before Fielding spotted a bear browsing on rose hips on the mountainside. A couple of fellas I know had successfully taken bears this season by finding them feeding on acorns, but I’d never been able to locate any. I was beyond pleased to discover that the bears in our new hunting area were making use of the rose hips.

After watching the bear for a while to make sure it was mature and not a female with cubs, we made our stalk and got Fielding set up for a shot. I watched through the spotting scope as he squeezed the trigger. It was immediately clear that he had missed the bear completely.

It wasn’t until the following day that I discovered the turret on the rifle scope had shifted well off zero. I had failed to check it before handing Fielding the rifle. It was a frustrating mistake, and one I certainly won’t forget.

That night, we settled in beneath our tarp just as the wet, windy weather that had been forecast for the next few days began to arrive. Violent gusts made for a rough night’s sleep. We hoped the bear would make another appearance the following morning, but luck wasn’t on our side. After glassing the slopes all morning without seeing him, we moved on to explore more of the vast country around us. 

That’s when the trip really turned into an adventure.

Fielding and I were traversing an exposed high ridge when the rain we’d been expecting finally arrived, only it came as a violent storm front. With no reasonable way to get below the tree line quickly, we opted to shelter beneath a large boulder that offered some protection from the wind, rain, and hail.

Conditions quickly deteriorated into a complete whiteout, but we figured we could ride out the worst of it beneath our rocky shelter. Then came the lightning, and I knew I’d made the wrong choice.

As we huddled beneath the boulder, a bolt of lightning struck a dead snag just twenty yards in front of us. Fielding ducked and covered his face, but I watched as the tree violently exploded into pieces. We could literally feel the strike reverberate through our bodies, and the acrid smell of the burning snag filled the air.

I’ve been caught in similar situations on my own. Once, in the Rockies, a violent storm front caught me exposed above the tree line and forced me to run down a snowy north face as lightning crashed repeatedly around me.

This time was different, though. When you’re with your child, whose life you value so much more than your own, the experience takes on an entirely different and much more frightening dimension.

At that point, it was clear we weren’t safe where we were. I texted our coordinates to Mary, and we dumped our packs, rifles, hiking poles, and everything else except a couple of headlamps. We picked the route that would get us below the tree line as quickly as possible and made a run for it.

What followed was a long, miserable, and sketchy bushwhack over wet, downed timber and talus slopes. But we eventually made it back to the truck. The one high point was that the storm had really fired up the bull elk, and we were serenaded by bugles for hours as we traversed the wilderness.

The next three days brought constant rain and high winds. We decided to leave our gear where it was, hope for the best, and enjoy the miserable weather from the comfort of home.

Today was the first clear, sunny day since the storm moved through. I picked Fielding up from school early, and we climbed back up the mountain to retrieve our equipment. Aside from a rusty .410 shotgun that Fielding had carried in hopes of getting an opportunistic shot at a grouse, everything was in good shape.

We’d really hoped to find another bear, but it took us so long to get back up the mountain that there wasn’t much time or light left for hunting. There is still plenty of bear season left, and I have evenings and weekends available to keep at it!