Bear Stare Down.

Ride 76

Vedder Mtn

Duck Farm Loop.

Headed up to the do the regular DFL. About half way down, where you hit the logging road for the second time, I came across a Black Bear....a BIG Black Bear. I'm going to say it was easily 6 ft from nose to tail...maybe more. We were about 10 m apart. I was up the trail and it was down on the road. I startled it as I came around the last turn into a clearing and because of this it ran down the road and stopped on the entrance to the last piece of trail about 30m away! Fantastic!

So there I am staring at this Bear, and it's just sitting there staring at me. After about 15 sec I get the bright idea to clap loudly to try and scare it off. Clap once and it bounds into the bush. Great! Claps two and three send it into a full blown run down the hill, crashing through everything in its path. That's when it happened. Directly behind and up the hill from me, something else was spooked and was crashing down the hill. This "thing" sounded just as big as the bear I just scared off. I jumped back on my bike and tried to find the pedals. Two attempts to find the pedals later, I was pinning it down the last of the trail; down the road and back onto single track.

Luckily the one I scared first was heading through the bush in the direction I wasn't going. I cautiously finished my ride and made it home safe and sound. I think I "saw" 6 more bears on the rest of the ride.....damn shadows.