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Somewhere in these woods, too, are the hibernating black bears.  Each fall, triggered by some ancient memory of winter, black bears go on a feeding frenzy.  They consume up to 20,000 calories a day, adding 30 percent to their body weight.  With the first snow, they den – deep in hollow logs, caves, shallow holes lined with grass.  Sometimes they den up to 90 feet high in the broken-off trunks of ancient trees.  Their heart rates drop to ten beats a minute, and they settle in for four to six months.

They do not eat, drink, urinate, or defecate.  Research on how they recycle waste without poisoning their systems has helped in treating kidney patients.  Learning how they manage long periods of inactivity without calcium loss or atrophied muscles may help prevent osteoporosis and have implications for long-term space flight.

The bear’s utter faith in the return of spring keeps coming to mind.  Standing here on the thin edge, a few degrees from a climate unsuitable for life, it is comforting to know that under the snow, bears are sleeping with an innocent belief that the sun will come again and unlock the rivers and make the flowers bloom.

Reader’s Digest, March 1997, pages 60,61