Crone Crest Grizzly

We call ourselves 'Crones of the Caribou' and we named this campsite 'Crone Crest'. Today we had a layover day at this beautiful location. I woke up sweating at 7:00 AM because the sun is out and my tent was an oven. Since I was the first one up, I sat on the ridge and meditated for about 45 minutes. Before closing my eyes, I scanned the hills and meadow across the river with my binocs and saw about a dozen caribou grazing and napping.

When I opened my eyes after meditating, I noticed an animal in the high grass across the river. Then it raised its massive head and I saw that it was a grizzly. I alerted Carol and the others, and we sat up on the ridge watching the bear for another 45 minutes while it foraged for food, dug up roots, and rolled on its back with feet in the air - quite oblivious to our presence.

It continued to forage, moving in a lateral direction when suddenly it became alert and looked up at us - it had caught our scent. When it realized we were humans, it started running and headed up the hill - again amazing us with its speed climbing that steep hill. It stopped briefly to take a 'stress dump' then ran again, stopping near the top to look at us. We could see its chest heaving while it breathed heavily from the exertion.

Carol started waving her arms and walking back and forth so it wouldn't think we were benign entities that it could check out later. It ran again and disappeared over the hill. We felt more at ease witnessing the second bear than ran from us.