The occasional downsides of living in a natural paradise.

[Chan790]

3. I do.

Actually, bears are generally more scared of us than vice-versa. I see bears often.

The issue here was actually the cub; you never want to be between a bear and its cub, which was what I stumbled into. I was past the mother before I saw her...which is fine because she immediately ran further back from the trail into the trees around the brook and then eyeballed me. I went around the next corner (kind of a slight candy-cane turn about a 1/4 mile up the trail), towards the dirt-ford over the brook that feeds the spillway from the hatchery...and standing on the ford is the cub. Shit. So I can't go back the way I came because of mama bear and I can't ford because of the cub. So I backed slowly away from both bears and scurried up the tree and waited until they left.

Yes, bears can climb trees. The tree is still the best defense in that you only have to defend in one direction, the bear can only attack from below. (They generally won't chase you if they have their cubs with them, their instinct is to protect the cub.) I was wearing hiking boots, jeans and my ankle braces meaning I'm fairly well-armored from below; bears generally don't like being kicked repeatedly in the nose, and I had the high-ground so to speak.

The bears had little interest in me anyways, I was just an annoyance during breakfast.