Bear encounters

[Little Rickie]

We usually joke that my ladyfriend, Susan’s, singing will bring rain.

There was an item in yesterday’s Boston Globe about a homeowner who drove three raccoons out of his chimney by playing a radio tuned to a talk station at them. Smoking them out didn’t work, talk radio did.

Was it Rush Limbaugh? That would drive me out of my home.

 

[Chip]

(see the Yosemite footage of bears who learned how to jump in the top of a VW Beetle knowing it would pop open the doors).

Like "The Fonz" operating the Juke Box !

Go to Yosemite and EVERY trailhead has bear boxes because those bears know that cars often equal food!

In 1972 my parents took us on a 6 week trailer trip across the country to almost all of the National Parks. As it was a fairly small trailer, I took every opportunity available to sleep outside. Yosemite (at that time) was the ONLY park not laced with signs warning about bear. So my sister and I slept outside, open air, on cots in sleeping bags. That was the night of the only real bear encounter I've ever had. The bear was roaming the sites opening coolers left outside. It woke me up while it was at the next site over. After finishing up there it walked right into our site, sniffed my sleeping sister's head and then passed calmly between the two of us. I was frozen. I could have stuck my finger in the bear's ear. After it passed I woke my sister, who indicated she had a dream/feeling that a bug was in her hair and had thought to swat it. We moved back into the trailer.

 

[ALGonquin Bob]

... After finishing up there it walked right into our site, sniffed my sleeping sister's head and then passed calmly between the two of us. I was frozen. I could have stuck my finger in the bear's ear.

Chip - That's definitely the best bear story... YOU WIN!

 

[Chip]

I could have stuck my finger in the bear's ear.

I should have said "I could have stuck my finger in the bear's ear...IF I wasn't frozen in terror". If my sister had swiped it's nose and the bear bitten back...I don't think I would have been ANY help. Looking back, it must have been a small bear. We were on cots and its head was about eye level with me as it passed. Good times. Good times.

We saw many black bear and several grizzly in the Tetons and Yellowstone, but there were no "encounters". There are local bear my neighbors have seen, but I haven't...yet. I've only camped and hiked in the Dacks in winter and driven by Clark's in the summer. I've seen large piles of fresh bear scat in the Catskills, but no bear.

 

[Seeker]

Chip - That's definitely the best bear story... YOU WIN!

^^^^^^^ What he said!