Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Actual Real Bears

I've been wondering for a while what I would actually do if I saw actual bears on the road. Well today I found out. About 20km east of Mt Robson I was riding down the highway minding my own business when I suddenly noticed three shapes moving in the bushes on the side of the road. An adult and two cub black bears were rooting through the dirt only about 10 metres from me - I'm talking really really close. It happened so quick I didn't have time to think about anything. The bears hadn't noticed me yet, but I immediately swerved to cross the road. They were pretty distracted doing whatever they were doing, and they would never have seen me except that I swerved onto the feckin rumble strip and started making a hideous noise. Like I need another reason to hate rumble strips - I will add bear lure to the list. Anyways, they were very fortunately content to just sit and watch me roll by without doing a thing. I've always had a sneaking suspicion that I would meet my demise at the hands of a rumble strip, I just never thought it'd be because one had alerted a bear to my presence.

If I'd had my camera out I'd have done a photo, but as it was I was definitely not gonna stop and dig through my pannier looking for it. So you are just gonna have to believe me on this one.

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