Philip stood next to his parents and stared at the locked door. It was obviously a bedroom door except the hardware, unlike the other bedroom door privacy knob-sets in this luxurious ski rental property was a deadbolt lock. An elegant gold-tone plaque was attached to the door; on it, in black letters, was the word “Ursula.” Philip looked quizzically at his dad.

Sensing his son’s question, his father returned his glance and remarked: “Yep, I agree. A dead-bolt locked bedroom in a rental property doesn’t make sense. I can’t imagine why an owner would want to turn a four-bedroom, sleeps-eight, into a three-bedroom, sleeps-six. I can only assume that it has been converted to some kind of store room.”

“Okay. Dad,” responded his eighteen-year-old son, “but why the second-best bedroom on this upper floor, why not one of the lower level bedrooms like the one I am to sleep in?”

His mother looked at the two and chimed in, “I agree with you, Philip. What’s more there are almost a dozen lockers in the mud room and a couple of locked closets in the other bedrooms all with names on them. Surely there couldn’t have been a need for an additional store room. In my book, it is very odd!”

Philip’s father disliked conundrums and so, he waved his hand dismissively and turned away from the offending door. “I say, whatever the reason, we should be happy as it got us this lovely extra-large home with the three bedrooms that we need together with all the amenities of a larger home, Jacuzzi, sauna, large dining and living room, the list goes on!”

At that moment the two teen-age girls of the family pounded upstairs accompanied by shriek’s and giggles. “Come on, you slow pokes, we only have a few days, why are you staring at a locked door? It is gorgeous outside, let’s get some skiing in before dark!”

They descended to the main level. As they passed through the living area they paused to admire a magnificent view of Steamboat Springs and the ski slopes. The afternoon sun made the snow sparkle white on the west facing slopes. They could see the skiers in their multi-colored clothing weaving down the slope making fantastic blurs of color.  Philip and his dad exchanged a high-five as they hurried after the girls. This was the first year that the family had taken their annual ski holiday here, and they liked what they saw.

Hours later, they returned tired and happy. They entered through the ‘back’ mud-room door next to a bear-mauled trash room door. Philip took out his phone and snapped a picture of the bear’s strange claw marks. He wondered whether they were merely an attempt to break down the door or a more significant marking of territory. While his parents and siblings played cards upstairs he surfed for bear information and posted the image on Facebook. He found time to re-read Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury’s children’s book “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” which was displayed in a helpful collection of children’s books in his allotted bedroom. He ruminated on the possibility that even when the object of a quest is known the final denouement may defy that initial preconception.

The next evening, the family took a hot steamy sauna upon their return from skiing. The sauna with its glass door was adjacent to the locked door affording Philip time to stare and wonder. He still couldn’t rationalize the concept that the room had been converted into a mere extra store room. Did it house a piece of forbidden equipment or maybe crime-scene evidence? Later he returned to try to look through the keyhole without success; he even attempted to pick the lock. Lock picking looks easy in movies but, to his chagrin, he discovered that in this case it wasn’t. He listened intently and thought that he heard grunt-like sounds inside the room. He also noticed a faint shadow of a stain in the tan-colored Berber carpet immediately outside the door. He mentioned his observations to his dad who dismissively stated that the house was part of a duplex, and the sounds were undoubtedly coming from the adjacent tenants muffled by the wall insulation. As for the stain, well people often spill things on carpets.

The following morning, Philip went and stood outside the door to ruminate on its mystery. As he stared he had a break-through thought. The room was a bedroom, surely it had windows! He quickly slipped down to the main level and outside to investigate. He was right; the room did have windows. He identified two, which overlooked the main entry porch roof. There was a planter on the porch and, over it, a hole through the roof to allow natural irrigation. Philip saw that he could easily climb up on the planter and haul himself onto the roof. Then it would be easy, he thought, to navigate the roof and look in through the windows. He decided to return from the slopes early so that he could put his plan into execution unhindered by parental scrutiny.

The climb onto the roof was easier than he expected, however the crawl across ten feet of snow covered roof was more challenging. The snow was not thick. He brushed it off with his gloved hands and found footholds on the anti-slip roof hooks. To his amazement he found that both windows were open. He peered in and saw what looked like a normal bedroom; queen-sized bed with attractive cream and red comforter, bedside tables with lamps, a dresser with TV on top, and a closet. Hard as he tried he could detect nothing unusual. He pushed his anti-glare ski goggles onto    his head and looked closer. He observed that the closet door was ajar enabling him to see its contents strewn on the floor. They consisted of a grey blanket and an enormous stuffed animal. It was the sort, he thought that one wins at carnivals; except this one wasn’t pink, it was black. He noticed that a couple of small teddy bears like the one he had as a child were also mixed in the pile. He was disappointed and wondered whether he should give up or climb into the room for further investigation.

He was still considering options when one of the teddy bears moved its snout and made a small grunt. Philip shuddered and griped the cold window sill. Was he hallucinating? No, this was no delusion for the movement triggered a chain reaction. The large furry object also grunted and gently rolled; then it shoved the small teddy bear towards it’s stomach. Philip’s feet slipped, the snow-covered roof was slick and he almost fell off as the realization came that these were not toys but a live black bear and her cubs taking their annual winter torpor.

Some notes about Black Bears
The black bear’s torpor is a winter sleep in which breathing and heart rates slow down, and body temperatures are slightly depressed. Hibernation refers to a sleep in which the sleeper’s body temperature is drastically reduced. A bear in torpor does not drink, eat, urinate or defecate but can respond to danger signals and moves occasionally. Although Colorado Black Bears generally weigh between 100 – 450 lbs. they are not aggressive toward humans. The most dangerous animal in Colorado is the moose who is fearless and will charge at random. In the fall the bears, who are intelligent with good memories and a very acute sense of smell (ten times better than a dog) will raid dumpsters and anywhere that they can smell food (even in unlocked cars which they know how to open.) Their fall hyperphagia, or voracious eating, is to get fat enough to support their winter torpor when they will lose about 27% of their body weight. Black bears copulate in June after which the fertilized embryos go into stasis and, if the mother gets fat enough in the fall, they implant and grow. A litter of one to three 1 lb. cubs are born in January. From then until spring the cubs nurse on their sleeping mother. Bears have been known to make a basement of an occupied human residence into a winter den. The upper bedroom at the house, featured in my story, was visited by a bear in the fall. The animal got in the same way as Philip. I speculate, that the bear visitor may have been looking for a convenient winter den.