Montana Winter Black Bear

[tuffcrk14]

I went out to check a few of my cameras in northwest Montana before the snow shut me out until spring time last week and as I was following a set of elk tracks down an east facing ridge towards one of my cameras, I caught a dark shape in the corner of my eye. He was 40 yards from me and I’m not sure he knew I was there, even though I was not being quiet as I was hiking along at a good clip through crunchy snow. I watched him for about five minutes and he never got up once. He laid there and would turn his head occasionally to smell or lick himself, but paid me no attention at all. I marked the location so I can come back in the spring to see if he has a den there. This was a first for me and initially I felt a little weird about the encounter, but I’d guess he was just out of his den briefly and was acting pretty groggy.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk