Week 7 Story: The Trapping of Pikes Peak Bear

    There once was a woman named Jess who loved to travel the world. She was quite an adventurous woman, but was getting lonely and looking to find a partner to settle down. She traveled around many countries but was ready to return back home to America. She hopped on a plane and headed back to the states. On her plane ride home she thought to herself, “I want to have one more adventure, then I want to settle down”. After a very long flight, Jess touched down in her home state of Colorado.  

Jess had not been to Colorado in years due to all the traveling she had done in exotic countries. To get back into the Colorado lifestyle, she decided she needed to go on a hike. Her destination of choice was Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak was her favorite spot when she lived in Colorado so she knew this is where her last adventure as a single person should be. She knew that this would help her settle back into a casual lifestyle and lead her to love. While hiking up Pikes Peak, she stumbled upon a hiking stick. No other people were around so she knew she must hike up further to see who this hiking stick must belong to. Eventually she stumbles upon two people and a man her age. She takes the hiking stick to them and asks if it belongs to one of them. They tell her yes, but they left it behind because there was a bear they were trying to trick, so that is why they left It behind. The older woman told Jess, “every year we come here, an angry bear attacks one of our children. We leave the hiking stick behind to make the bear believe that something has already got to our child”. Jess is in shock because she cannot believe that the same bear has taken so many of their children. The parents explain that the young man with them is their last son. Jess tells that that she knows the way to get rid of the bear and asks if she can get rid of the bear, can she marry their son. They tell her yes.  

Jess starts on her journey around the mountain to find the bear. She sets eight different traps to try and capture this bear. Each trap makes the bear more and more confused. The bear gets to the last trap and he is stuck. The bear is highly confused by the trap and cannot figure out how to get out of it. Jess sees this as her chance to shoot the bear with a tranquilizer. She hides in a bush and shoots him and get him right in the behind. Jess then calls animal control and explains the situation. Animal control takes the bear away so he can no longer hurt anyone. Jess goes to tell the parents and the son what she has done. They are so ecstatic and thank Jess. They repay her by gifting her their blessing to marry their son. The son is so happy that he does not have to face the attack of the bear. He willingly goes with Jess and they have a beautiful wedding on the top of Pikes Peak. They live happily ever after and fear no bear anymore.  

Bear on Pikes Peak

Authors Note:

I got inspiration for this story from reading, The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi. In that story, a man finds a chopstick and learns that their is a village near by so he goes on a journey to find the people who live there. While on his journey, he meets three people; two parents and their princess daughter. The parents explain that a monster has killed all of their other children and this is their last daughter left. The man tells them he will kill the monster if he can marry their daughter and that is exactly what he does and they agree to it. I made my own spin on it by making it more realistic. I made it from a girls perspective though to change it up and I had her put the bear to sleep instead of killing it because I like bears and did not want it to die in my story. 

Bibliography: 

Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917). 

Original Story Source