I almost ran into a bear yesterday. As described in previous posts to this blog (this one, for example) it’s not terribly uncommon for me to see bears when I’m hiking in the mountains where I live. However, there were several things that make this encounter more interesting than usual.
It was late afternoon. The NexRad radar on the internet showed a ton of rain on the way but probably at least one hour out. Nevertheless, the wind was already gusting and roaring and the skies were very dark. I was motoring up the first ridge outbound from my house, and, in spite of all the racket, I was, as usual, in a zone. You know, thinking Important Thoughts. When I was about two-thirds of the way up the mountain, the thrashing of the trees and all the noise made me return to earth for a moment, and when I did, I saw a bear not thirty feet from me. As I was realizing what it was, it ran into a laurel thicket. What made this episode unusual was not (just) the closeness, but that I got the distinct impression that it only began to run when I looked up. And in order to get to the laurel thicket, which was somewhat behind me, it ran somewhat toward me. And it didn’t run particularly fast. It sort of lumbered casually. All of which left me with the feeling that this was not the first (or second or third) time that it had watched me walking past and that my looking up was quite a disruptive nuisance to the bear. Note that I was carrying and jingling my little bear bell and the bear was out in open woods (mature hardwood) with no line-of-sight issues. I expect it was eating acorns, which we have a ton of this year (last year there were almost none).
While hiking, though I consistently see lots of bear sign (poop; fifty+ pound rocks thrown hither and thither, etc.) I haven’t had a good look at a bear for a while. I did, sort of, see one in May. I heard a great crashing in the laurel (not far from yesterday’s encounter) and then lots of clawing that seemed to point to a big fat oak tree that was growing out of the laurel. After much squinting at the tree, I suddenly realized that I could see the bear’s toes (and/or claws) on either side of the trunk. So it was either a very big bear, or a little bear with long legs. I did see another bear about three weeks ago, but I was in my car, and it was in the middle of the (paved) road. It looked like a yearling (smallish, leggy) and it was sitting in the road, on its ass, looking at its hind feet. After I had come to a full stop and was just about to honk the horn, it trundled off to one side, but then stopped. We stared, appraisingly at each other for a few minutes before both going on about our business.
Bears are not nearly as exotic as they were not long ago. Last year a mother and two cubs turned up in the middle of downtown Charolottesville (pop. 45,000) which is not too far from where I live.
-Julie
Coloring 