Years ago we took our group on a 15 mile hike between the Teton National Forest and Yellowstone National Park to a destination named Union Falls where a tributary of Mountain Ash Creek joins at the very brink of the falls. Near the falls you will find a geo-thermal hot spring that will give you hours of swimming along with treasure hunting at the bottom of the pool as people lose many personal items there. One of our leaders lost his wedding ring as he was jumping into the water!

Between the warm water, hours of swimming, the 7.5 mile hike in and the 7.5 mile hike back out, all the energy in your body is completely suck out of you by the time your done. This was the case as we were hiking back out and had about 4 more miles until we reached the trailhead. Everyone, scouts and leaders, were shuffling their feet as we slowly made our way back to the trailhead. None of us realized that we were hiking through a patch of huckleberries and that there was a large black bear having lunch 20 yards away from us! The first leader to notice the bear tapped me on my shoulder and whispered, “hey, there’s a bear over there.” My first reaction was, “Dude! Don’t mess with me.”

“No really, there is a bear over there!”

As my eye’s focused on the furry black bear munching on his berries, I tapped the should of the scout in front of me and whispered the same message, “Hey, there is a bear over there.” The scout was a little bit quicker and not so quite about the wildlife sighting. He yelled at the top of his lungs, “A BEAR!”

This is the only time that I have witnessed the ears and face of a black bear look exactly like a stuffed teddy bear. It’s ears perked up and it’s eyes got really wide and open, and then this big ole black bear tumbled backwards and started high tailing it in the opposite direction as scouts and leaders were running and screaming in all directions. Too bad this took place before smart phones. It would have made an epic video.

In the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we are introduced to the term, Muggles. In the first book Hagrid explains to Harry that a Muggle is a non-magic folk. In the third book or movie in this case, Harry has had enough of his Uncle and Aunt and is running away after blowing up Aunt Marge. He boards the Knight Bus and they start speeding through the streets on their way to London. With so many muggles also driving on the streets, Harry raises the following question. “What about the Muggles? Won’t they see us?!” To the reply Stan says, “Muggles! The don’t see nothing, do they?!”

This was the case for us as we were hiking through the forest and only focusing on our feet shuffling through the dirt. We had Muggle Vision. We were not paying attention to our surroundings as we walked directly into a bear during dinner time. I guess you could say that the bear also had Muggle Vision as he had no clue that 10 humans were walking in on him while he was munching away on his berries. One great tip is to always be aware of your surroundings. Our group was extremely lucky in this case as you never know what attitude a bear may have if you startle it.

Sometimes there are things going on around us that we have no clue of. Some of these things may include us missing out on opportunities for not paying attention. Who knows, maybe there is a troop or patrol member who is feeling left out or going through some hard times and just needs someone to be friendly too them. Let’s be the one that is paying attention so we can be friendly and helpful to other people at all times.