Effin bear spray....
I took the family on a little road trip earlier this summer and we did quite a bit of hiking through bear country... seeing quite a few bear along the way. One evening, after a hot, muggy day of hiking, we had gotten some fantastic takeout mexican food which had some real kick to it and ate it on the tailgate of the pickup in front of our motel room. As we finished up the family went inside to wash up and wind down for the evening. I took a few minutes to organize the bed of the pickup and to get everything situated for the following days hike. At some point the safety clip fell out of the trigger mechanism for the spray canister and I grabbed my pack and drug it towards me. The top of the canister momentarily got hung up on a camelbak under it and whizzed a shot of the devils juice mere inches away from my face, not a direct hit but enough to give me a whiff. It cleared my sinuses but I was not worse for the wear. I searched the back of the pickup to see if any of my gear or the vehicle caught the spray but it appeared that it simply shot out over the bed rail and into the grass so I found the safety clip under some gear, finished getting organized, and locked up the back of the pickup.
Fast forward 15 minutes when it was my time to shower. I had put shampoo in my hair when my lips started to tingle, I kind of chuckled as I thought about how good and spicy dinner was, attributing the sensation to my capsaicin laced green chile sauce. As my hands moved to apply soap to more sensitive areas of my body my eyes started to twinge a bit and I thought, "this isn't right....".
About the moment that thought ran through my head the nether regions of my body started to burn and within seconds the harmony of pain surging through my lips, my eyes, and my unmentionables hit a Mariah Carey-esque high note. Suddenly and unknowingly I had incapacitated myself in a tiny, unfamiliar shower. I couldn't see, I couldn't find the water handle, and I couldn't decide which portion of my body deserved the stream of flushing water running over it more than the other parts of my body.
One may think that the eyes would be the most sensitive piece of the anatomy in that aforementioned chorus, but I can confidently report that it was neither they nor my lips that caused the most discomfort.
At some point the thought of that bear spray flashed through my mind, but I was blind and in excruciating pain so the cause wasn't all that important for the time being. I really only had 2 options, call to my wife for help or ride it out. I knew that if I asked for help there'd be all sorts of questions before I actually got any assistance and I didn't feel like going through a thorough medical screening from my wife (who works in healthcare, it's what they're trained to do) so I chose option B.
For the next 10-15 minutes I alternated rinsing my eyes, my mouth, and my manhood. I got through it, but now I knew I had another problem.... where did I get sprayed and what can I touch? I carefully inspected and sniffed the clothes I'd been wearing like a basset hound only to come up completely empty. When I came out of the bathroom and looked in the mirror it looked as though I'd just swam through the Berkeley Pit and kept my eyes open under water.
It wasn't until the next morning that I believe I found the source of my discomfort. When the canister discharged, it just caught the top of the hip belt on my pack leaving a quarter sized stain of the contents. After getting the covered wagon treatment over night under my tonneau cover, I got another small whiff when I opened up the tailgate to retrieve packs the next morning.
A day or two later we were entering Yellowstone National Park and I turned it onto the AM station to get current park info. In the repeating broadcast they had a segment on bear safety and claimed that the use of bear spray was 90% effective. I call bulls---. There is no way bear spray isn't 110% effective on the largest beasts on this planet. I got 3rd hand exposed 25 minutes after the discharge and it turned me into a helpless, feeble pile of sludge on the floor of an unclean shower. I'm not active in the anti-bearspray movement, but I have to wonder if bearspray really helps more people than it hurts.
