This is the version not for Mom’s ears.
We were nearing the end of our hike today and moving along a narrow trail above the lake shore line. There was quite a bit of traffic on the trail so no one was really too stressed about bears. Watchful but not overly concerned. Guess what…wrong.
Kent grabbed my arm. “Wait” he said. The people in front of us are moving way to fast and watching behind themselves. Sure enough, the grizzly was following them down the trail at a pretty quick pace. They disappeared around the curve in the trail and must have broken into a run as soon as they were out of the bear’s line of sight. We saw them down on the beach not long after. The bear followed the trail out of sight too. “Now what?” We wait. All of a sudden there seems to be no one else on the trail and we don’t know whether the bear has moved on or is hanging out around the corner. We wait. A kayaker has been watching as have about six or eight people with binoculars on the beach. They watch the bear. We watch them. Finally they all seem to loose interest and the kayaker says the bear is not longer in sight. We take that as a good sign and begin to move on, loudly. We walked and watched and did a lot of talking and emerged on the beach unscathed with not another glimpse of the bear. I suspect he had simply moved on in his berry search never giving any of us humans another thought. That was a closer encounter than I really needed.