As Requested

[bubbles]

My first summer in Yosemite, I was working at Glacier Point, at the top of the 4-mile trail. 4 miles may not sound like a long hike, but when you're also gaining a mile in elevation, it's freakin long. I used to get up well before dawn on the days when I hiked to work, and I would curse silently the whole way up, wondering why the hell I didn't just catch a ride up the other side of the hill like everyone else. I would rest near the top and collect myself, so I wouldn't look like a week-old corpse. Once I caught my breath, I would breeze into work, insisting that I had to make that hike more often.
One day while I was resting on a log, thinking about ice cream, I saw a crowd gathering.
They were all staring up at a tree. Curious as I was, it wasn't worth getting up for. Then the bear came toward me. Very large and very cute, in a he-could-bite-me-in-half sort of way.
Scared as I was, it wasn't worth getting up for. So I stared at him for a while as he glomped on to the nearest tree and started tearing out huge chunks of bark to nibble on the bugs underneath. When the tree was pretty well gutted, he climbed down. Finally he noticed me. I was completely still, staring. I was expecting him to either charge at me or run away, but he just calmly turned his back. He then flopped back onto his haunches in the cutest, most graceless turn, so that he was facing me again. He stared back. I asked, "Are you making fun of me?". Not out loud, of course. Bears don't speak English, and anyway, I was trying to stay on his good side. Eventually he got bored with the staring contest and meandered off. I totally won that one.
That was my best encounter with the black bears of Yosemite. I may have gotten closer while chasing them away from the trash cans at White Wolf. I was definitely more frightened when I was lost in the woods in the rain, and hid out in a tree stump until I realized that it was the local bear hangout. Still, just chillin with the bear, neither of us really willing to make a move... That was my favorite.

Comments

[coffeesnob.livejournal.com]

That's awesome. And I agree. You totally won. Bubbles - 1. Bear - 0.