re: #153 William Barnett-Lewis

I’ve done enough hiking in the national parks to know to announce my presence in bear country. I don’t carry bear spray, but do make a habit of humming/singing as we go along, and trying to stay in more populated areas (we don’t do back country hiking). Making enough noise gives the bear/critters a chance to scamper away.

But even with all that, the closest my wife got to a wild bear was in Yellowstone - about 25-30 feet away. It was on the elevated walkways at Mammoth. I saw the black bear and a group of people taking pictures from about 25-50 feet away, but I thought that was idiotic since the bear could change its mind from eating berries/flowers and decide to go after the closest person. I start taking pictures from about 75-100 feet away (still close, but with the walkway and people being closer, thought it was safe-ish. So I look around, and notice the Mrs. was not near me. She was in that close group. Had to give my adult come-here voice. The novelty of being close to a wild bear overcame her common sense (and that of everyone else in that group).

At least that was a small-ish black bear. Grizzly? Seen those at about 100-300 yards, and even then that’s close. Park rangers had to shoo people away from a group of bears feeding on carcass. Heard later that the rangers decided to move the carcass into the woods to keep people from congregating and putting themselves at risk of an attack. After all, the grizzly bears can hit 30-40 mph for a sustained burst, and can do some serious damage.