“Besides there’s plenty of bears. Alaska is the only place on earth where it is illegal to hunt polar bears (so I’m told).”

Then you are not informed about Svalbard. See no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard. Scroll down to see the funny polar bear road sign!

You’re right…. sensational journalism at its worst. Using normal biological facts to hype fear.

hahahahaa.. domestic violence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7130000/newsid_7138300/7138312.stm

“The 23cm-long jawbone is thought to have belonged to a female bear 110,000 or even 130,000 years ago.

Scientists are excited because it was thought polar bears had been around for less than 100,000 years. ”

Therefore polar bears have been around since the last interglacial at the very least.

A Polar Bear jaw from the last (considerably warmer) interglacial was recently found in Spizbergen. So this is definitely at least the second interglaciasl for them.

When I was very small, I thought we grew rocks because we picked them out of the fields every spring and fall. Also if you go out into the valley you will notice lots of rock jacks used along fence lines. In some areas, that is the only way to put up a fence because you can’t dig past the boulders hiding below the surface.

We have a bit of a mean streak in us too. When bike riders ask us if there is another way out of the valley other than going back out the Minam Grade we point them towards hwy 3 to Lewiston, Idaho, extolling the easy ride down to the river. And then there is the road to Pine Eagle. That one gets you to Baker City by going around the Wallowas on the snake river side. The vistas are a must see with both routes if you can manage to get the sweat out of your eyes. And miss the rattle snakes on the road. And not get eaten by a cougar. And now there are the moose and wolves to deal with. Do you have a horn on your bike? Sometimes you can frighten the little animals away with a honker.

So if you need any advice, I am your go to woman.

I finally looked up Enterprise on a map. Looks like a valley filled with soil (as opposed to a canyon that is all rock). My family bicycled through a ways south of you and went through Richland and Halfway, also filled valleys. And hot (2003).

I thought they were a nice break from basalt. My daughter wasn’t completely impressed, “Well, we were planning on trying to get to the town Halfway (once again, a depressingly un-creative name. It’s called that because it is halfway down the walls of the deepest river canyon in the country) today, but we were too tired. We stopped in Richland. It was pretty hot today, so we stopped to swim twice in Powder River. We are now camped in the town park, which has soft ground, green grass, and clovers (the soft ground is especially nice because it means that I can actually get my tent stakes all the way into the ground, and I won’t have to worry that one will come out and the whole thing will collapse on me).”

My note was simply “we camp in the big town park. Pretty nice spot, actually.” http://wermenh.com/biketour/restof_or.html I called Baker City “the Somewhere in the middle of Nowhere.”

Looks like a rather challenging bike ride from Halfway to Enterprise.

I deliberately refer to enviromentalists (no “N”)

“…climate change is pitting people against tigers – with deadly consequences. ”

‘There are many tiger widows here’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/25/conservation.climatechange

Global Warming makes polar bears eat each other.

Global warming makes tigers eat people.

Ted Turner is right.

I’m gonna go eat somebody.

I’m afraid it’s not going to stop with polar bears.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/04/02/turner-iraqi-insurgents-patriots-inaction-warming-cannibalism

Ted Turner has read the writing on the walls