There are some easier ways to get a stress test

In a wild swipe at the soaring costs of health care, a grizzly bear has graciously given an Alaska fitness fanatic a free and almost painless medical checkup.

The incident occurred in a busy Anchorage park – a virtual house call for a forester who’s stomped around the grizzly-infested bush for decades without a serious bear encounter.

According to Craig Medred, who filed this report of national interest in the Anchorage Daily News, Rick Rogers was finishing a three-hour running and power-hiking workout with a buddy in Hillside Park when he unwittingly barged into the office of a grizzly with a beastly bedside manner.

“It seemed like it lasted a lifetime,” Rogers said, bringing to mind medical procedures almost all of us have endured. “But it was probably only 15 seconds.”

The two men had startled a sow with two cubs.

“She was scared. We were scared. Looking back, it was pandemonium,” Rogers told Medred.

“She was coming out of the brush hauling ass,” said his buddy, who noted that he was fending off the sow with ski poles he was carrying and she stopped as two cubs the size of puppy dogs appeared out of the woods.

Rogers saw that as an opportunity to head for a nearby tree, but as soon as he moved, the bear abandoned the standoff with his friend and charged.

Luckily, perhaps, Rogers tripped before the bear caught up to him. Seeing the bear still coming, he curled into a fetal position. And probably because he no longer appeared to pose a threat, the sow basically just ran over him, with the little cubs tagging along behind.

The two men regrouped and tried to leave immediately, but the bear came back, Medred reported. The runners made themselves big, waved their ski poles in the air and yelled at the bear to go away – and it did.

After the ordeal, Rogers, 50, was able to see his test results, if not his contribution to science.

Being a competitive skier and triathlete, Rogers was wearing a heart-rate monitor. In years of training, he’d pegged his maximum heart rate at 180.

But during his encounter with the grizzly, his ticker revved up to 193.

“You hear about people dying of fright,” he said. “Well, this was scary, and I’ve the data to prove it. I think it aged me about five years.”

Spokane cardiologist Bill Bennett – a fisherman and physician who has a field-to-clinic perspective on this subject – said he’s not particularly surprised at the athlete’s physiological response to becoming a piece of runner carpet for a defensive grizzly.

“A person with coronary disease could be in trouble with a heart rate accelerating even over 110 or so,” Bennett said.

Using some long doctor words, he explained how excitement can unleash epinephrine (usually referred to as adrenaline) into our systems in a chemical reaction that has created countless winners and losers, heroes and victims through history, plus a lot of babies.

Bennett said he wouldn’t be surprised if an athlete in a panic situation spiked a heart rate of 200.

“For a guy who knows he’s capable of 180, you might just call hitting 193 a stress test,” Bennett said. “I wouldn’t say this is the preferred method of stress testing, but in my opinion his coronary arteries appear to be just fine.”

And, with the prep work also completed at no charge, bring on the colonoscopy!

Group therapy: Being in a close group is the preferred method of hiking or biking through grizzly country.

Most bear attack victims were solo or separated from their group. A group of two or three is better than being solo. But four or more is better yet.

In his book, “Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance” Stephen Herrero, the research authority on bear attacks in North America, said, “In 88 percent of the incidents, only one person was injured. I found no records of four or more people being injured in an attack. I believe there is greater safety in larger parties.”

Still snowed under: Backcountry travelers are still finding natural roadblocks to their favorite places. For perspective, here are a few examples.

“St. Joe River Road access to the Red Ives area may not be opened until the end of June, as contractors began work this week to repair a landslide just upstream from Fly Flat Campground. Moon Pass has been plowed out for people heading to the St. Joe drainage from Wallace, but access from St. Regis over Gold Pass is still plugged with snow.

“Selkirk Mountains high country is still snowbound. Pat Hart, Forest Service trail crew manager in Bonners Ferry, said she was breaking through waist-deep snow while checking on trail washouts in the upper Snow Creek drainage last week.

“Mount Rainier camp facility openings are weeks behind normal, although the Stevens Canyon Road connecting the east and west sides of the park has been plowed. Bring skis or snowshoes if you plan to get off the road. Longmire still has more than 20 inches of snow, and Paradise, at 5,400 feet, received 898 inches of snow this season, and those alpine meadows remain buried under 14 feet of snow.

“Throughout the region, the late spring has delayed crews from making much progress in clearing trails. Expect blowdowns on trails higher than 3,000 feet, and high water in creek crossings.