A handful of Denver students from the Odyssey School had a close encounter with a bear during the first night of a three-night camping trip near Granby.
No one was harmed, but just to be safe, the students are now camping indoors.
“Kids were kind of bummed, but they understand,” said Jackie Wells, director of operations for the school and leader of the camping group. “They’ve been complete troupers.”
Monday night just after 10, as 11 seventh- and eighth-grade students and two adult leaders were settling into their tents for the night, a black bear broke into their school bus, 30 feet from the group’s tents.
The bus door was damaged but still operating.
“We didn’t see who the culprit was at that point,” Wells said. “But we felt pretty confident of what had come to visit us.”
The adult leaders decided to have the group spend the night in a van that was hauling their canoes — just to be safe.
“We are hyper-conservative when it comes to the safety of our students,” Wells said. “It was a very uncomfortable night, but it was the right decision to make.”
While the group from the Denver charter school tried to sleep in the van, the bear returned to the school bus a second time.
Wells got out of the van about 5 a.m. Tuesday and saw the bear about 20 yards away from the bus as it was leaving.
Mountain Lakes Lodge offered the group a free stay for the rest of the trip, and the group will continue with all other planned activities, including canoeing today.
The charter school is modeled on expeditionary education principles, where students learn partly through rigorous fieldwork.
“Rangers came later in the afternoon and really framed it well for the kids,” Wells said. “I think they will be walking away with a pretty cool understanding of the power of nature and an even better story.”
Mike Porras, a regional spokesman for the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife, said the bear that broke into the group’s bus ate the students’ granola bars. It had already broken into a cooler and tent canopy at different campsites that same night.
“At no time did he present a threat,” Porras said. “They took the right precautions.”
Unfortunately, the bear had already learned to look for easy meals around campsites, Porras said.
The bear will be trapped and relocated to a different habitat.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com
