black bear!

Day 77 ~ miles 1224.8 - 1250.9

I slowly came out of my dream to the sound of quiet beeping from Sideways' wrist watch alarm clock. I rolled over and we looked at each other, both almost instantaneously falling back asleep. Five a.m. came quick, and there wasn't  yet much  sunlight where we were camped. We repeated this a couple of times before a successful attempt was made 40 minutes after the original alarm sounded. The first thing to pop into my head was the opening song to the play Oklahoma: "Ohhh what a beautiful morning ohh what a beautiful day....". This has been a popular one for me and Sideways to sing on the trail, after seeing our local high school's production of it just before leaving the beach. It usually reflects the mood we are in, but that was not the case this morning.

We started with a decent climb today and stayed mostly in the cover of trees. As we were walking I spotted some bear tracks in the soft duff layer on the forest floor next to the trail. I pointed them out to Sideways, and we both gazed at them for a moment wondering if it might still be around. We moved on since there was no bear immediately in sight. Not far down the trail, we came across a rather large pile of mountain lion scat. We talked about how eerie it is to know that several of those cats have probably laid eyes on us since the beginnig of the trail. Now sufficiently paranoid, I was scanning the forest for any sign of danger. We rounded a bend in the trail and something dark caught my eye down the hill. Staring back at me from a safe distance was a 300 pound black bear. As Sideways approached I directed her attention to him, just as he bolted in the other direction. We were above him, so we had a great view of the action. We both agreed we had never gotten to see a bear running at full speed for so long. It got our adrenaline going and it was comforting to see a wild bear with a healthy fear of humans.

We ended our day by the Feather River, where we cooled off and rinsed out some clothes.  The river was wide and deep, and a more enjoyable temperature than most others we've been encountering.

-Moonshine