#napping bear

[robbie-and-thesusuwataribobby]

@omythetime-travelingbear always takes advantage when Im napping to take a pic. Such a dork

[dreaming-of-trails]

Our 6 day backpacking trip was finally beginning. The camper bus had finally dropped us (my uncle and me) off, and continued out of sight.  While getting our packs fitted we noticed a bear slowly picking its way through the stream bed to the north of us.  Another shuttle passing through pulled up beside us and the door popped open - almost as if they were offering temporary refuge on the bus. 

We had no interest in delaying our trip so we continued south as originally planned. The bus sat there for a quite a while as the people viewed and photographed the bear from the safety of the bus.  The view was incredible heading south and we encountered a couple caribou and even spotted a few bear tracks.  

As we followed the stream south, and the road disappeared from sight, my eyes began to fixate on the strangely shaped rock ahead.  Its glare was not like that of the other rocks, but sometimes it would look like animal hide and other times like just a brown rock.  At about 75 yards, the "rock" moves, lifting its head to look in our direction.  I snapped a few more pictures, and then we made a detour to the mountain side where we setup and watched the bear for quite a while. At one point, a caribou nervously approached, and then cautiously passed within 25 yards of the napping bear. 

Make no mistake though, we never intentionally approached any bears.  We saw around 12 bears during the trip and made sure to route away from them allowing for adequate distance between ourselves and the bears. Denali NP tells hikers to maintain a 1/4 mile distance from bears.  (July 2013)