An evening walk with the bears

Had a nice little hike this evening. Needed to think, and with flatmates around watching tv, this little apartment isn't the best place for peace of mind. So I put on a sweater and went for a stroll down the street. I began talking myself through my work & career dilemma - the dilemma being balancing work/satisfaction/money/goals progress. I noticed that I was really enjoying the walk, and decided to do a longish hike partway up Blackcomb mountain, across, and down another run.

On the way up I had the pleasure of passing closely by a couple of deer, even pausing a couple minutes to watch one feeding. I was probably within 15 yards as I sat back on my haunches, watching him feed and chatting to myself and the deer. I also spotted a huge black bear through a gap in the trees, well away on the next run over; he paused and looked at me, I looked back, then kept hiking up.

As the sun set and the light began to fade, I had some minor concerns about the wildlife. Earlier this week I read an article about a cougar encounter-and-pursuit of a mountain biker nearby (which ended without incident). Of course, I knew that cougar encounters here are uncommon, black bears are relatively non-aggressive, and besides, I'm a peaceful being, in harmony with nature (do wild animals respect that viewpoint?)

My concerns grew on the way down the mountain, as I noticed two or three bears aways down the run below me. The evening light was fading fast into the darkness of night. As I approached the animals, I was relieved to see that it was two bears, not three - what I'd thought might be a third was (thankfully) a black snowmaking pad against the trees on the side of the run. If it had been a bear as well, that would have entailed me passing amongst the animals, almost certainly between a mama bear and cubs - not mama's favorite scenario, nor mine.

I'd picked up a piece of bamboo on the way down, for my own psychological reassurance more than anything. The two bears were centre-left on the run as I approached, one larger than the other, which I guessed was mama. The path I took was far right, within a few strides of the trees, to avoid alarming them - or so I hoped. Turns out these bears were more easily alarmed than I expected. As I came up alongside them, perhaps 30 yards away, they looked up, looked at each other, and began to run towards me. My heart surged. "Whoa-o-o guys!" I said to them. I had a brief vision of fending them both off - I'd always wondered how it would be to fight a bear, whether I was up for the challenge. Here was my chance to find out.

But in fact, as they passed by a few paces in front of me, gently grunting in what I interpreted as fear themselves, I realized that this wasn't mama and cubs - this was two cubs, running to safety - to mama.

The question immediately came to mind: "Where's mama bear now?"

I walked more quickly down the hill from there, turning occasionally to see if any wild animals had taken a sustained interest in me. To my relief, that didn't seem to be the case. I did see one more huge bear down below, fairly close to where I'd meant to hike, but happily, there was an alternate dirt-and-rock route off to the side. I finished off my hike without further incident, and have decided that henceforth, I'll be conducting my mountain hiking activities in daylight.