"I won’t be eating oatmeal ever again in my life. Ever. Throughout the day, I had a snack bag with trail mix and dried fruit and cheese and crackers and nuts. And of course, chocolate, and I have a soft spot for gummy bears. Dinner was instant noodles, pasta, carbs. At the beginning, I was nervous about bears and trying to keep a clean camp. I met many, many, many bears and 98 percent were kind and wonderful to watch. I never carried anything but bear spray for most of the journey. When I went to the high Arctic, I carried a gun and had to use it once because I had a bear come into my camp. My partner was with me. She picked up the gun and fired a couple of warning shots and we quickly packed off into the canoe and realized we didn’t spill our coffee."
That article is from last August. I just ran into it today because — as described here — I was searching the NYT archive for the use of the word "sherpa" to mean something other than a person within the ethnic group called Sherpa. This article — with the line "Very few get up that mountain without a Sherpa" — is not an example of what I was looking for.
10 comments:
How many are many, many, many?
Many, many, many, many minus one?
She has got to be one tough broad...good for her having so many adventures and memories...
I’m not as trusting. I carry a 10 mm G20 with bear loads when I am anywhere I might encounter bears. And, something heavier at home. Bear mace seems to work decently well with black bears, but reportedly only about half the time with brown bears. And if you get between a sow and her cubs, expect that to be the time it doesn’t.
Did she keep the gummy bears in her pocket so they were warm and soft? Any Gen Xer knows that's where you keep them. Just ask Principal Rooney.
and 98 percent were kind and wonderful to watch
Oh, honestly.
99+% of the people I run into are kind and wonderful as well. It's the tail end that you have to pay attention to. It's the 2% that will kill you, bear-wise.
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"I won’t be eating oatmeal ever again in my life. Ever."
Me neither, and I am sad about this. I love oatmeal, but I recently learned what it does to my blood glucose.
I've done some trekking in Nepal and "Sherpa" is used there both generically for a porter and for the ethnic group. The real Sherpas are pound for pound the toughest people I've seen. They were also one of the most admirable. I remember one of them telling me that when working as a guide or porter in the Himalayas he was a servant of the job not the person who hired him.
Yeah, Bears are the greatest guys in the world, until they attack you.
My husband and I and one of my employers have used the word sherpa to mean someone who is lugging stuff around. Not uncommonly it was me with the laptop and presentation materials or excessive luggage. It was in use in my business and friend circle in that way. There may have been a book or movie source
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