How was that not the first thing you mentioned when you got home?
I often like to go for bike rides on Squaw Peak Road (which unlike Chinks Peak in Idaho, has yet to be renamed). It's a mountain road with 1550 feet of elevation gain over 4.3 miles (an average grade of 7%), making it a nice challenge that's not too far from home.
Ten minutes after I got home, I remembered to tell Karen, "Oh, by the way, I saw a bear. It was about 20 feet away." Her response was, "How was that not the first thing you mentioned when you got home?" Good point.
I was riding downhill at this turn, photograph courtesy of Street View:
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As I came around the corner, I noticed a bear standing on the road, right in the middle of the lane. We made eye contact, and I braked as quickly as possible. The bear seemed a little scared of me, or at least by the fast human-bike cyborg that I appeared to be. With a mistrusting and/or fearful glare (bear emotions are hard to read), it wandered off into the trees.
I know a little more about bears than I did yesterday. The bear had brown fur, but it was a black bear. They're the only species in Utah, and according to Wikipedia, only half of black bears in the Rocky Mountains have black fur. Apparently, brown bears rarely attack unless they're hungry. If necessary, I could have used my bike as a weapon, but fortunately, neither of us was aggressive.
Ten minutes after I got home, I remembered to tell Karen, "Oh, by the way, I saw a bear. It was about 20 feet away." Her response was, "How was that not the first thing you mentioned when you got home?" Good point.
I was riding downhill at this turn, photograph courtesy of Street View:
View Larger Map
As I came around the corner, I noticed a bear standing on the road, right in the middle of the lane. We made eye contact, and I braked as quickly as possible. The bear seemed a little scared of me, or at least by the fast human-bike cyborg that I appeared to be. With a mistrusting and/or fearful glare (bear emotions are hard to read), it wandered off into the trees.
I know a little more about bears than I did yesterday. The bear had brown fur, but it was a black bear. They're the only species in Utah, and according to Wikipedia, only half of black bears in the Rocky Mountains have black fur. Apparently, brown bears rarely attack unless they're hungry. If necessary, I could have used my bike as a weapon, but fortunately, neither of us was aggressive.
Crazy story. How big was the bear?
ReplyDeleteI think it was about the size of a table I'm looking at across the room, so with the bear standing on all legs, I think it was about 4 feet long and 2.5 feet tall. Or in other words, big enough to scare me. :)
ReplyDelete