I came around the corner of the driveway and about 12 feet away, with head buried in the salmon berry bushes, was a 350 lb. brown bear! (Brown bears are the same species as Grizzlies and Kodiak bears depending on where they live and what they eat!) My heart started pounding out of my chest as I backed away slowly. I had been trained to NOT run, stand your ground, make yourself look bigger among other strategies to prevent a bear attack. Now the hind quarters (including tail!) was waaayyy to close to my face. The top picture has a finger shadow on the right. Those are the bushes where I turned and first saw the bear.
I backed up turned around, turned back to make sure it hadn't heard me or wasn't following me, and scooted silently up those steps to lock the door of the apartment we were staying in. Wait... did I just see a LARGE, LIVE, bear in the front yard of our Alaskan host's house in Sitka?! I called the folks in the main house to warn them not to go outside and they all gathered at the windows to watch and photograph this curious critter rummaging through the yard. What photos! What an encounter! What grand luck that it didn't sense me! It crossed over the creek and rummaged through some supplies including an old crab trap behind my apartment.
Earlier we had hiked to Thimbleberry Lake and see evidence of bear skat, trampled bushes and dug up moss banks. We found out later that it had uprooted some plants, torn open the dog crate where the bunny was (no evidence of injury to critter!) all in hopes of adding fat to its fairly skinny frame despite being 350 points and 5 years old.
Luck and calm reactions saved my life. Grateful for the training and preparations our guide and park rangers had given us along the way!
