Close to, or right underneath Rusolia mountain my eye caught two fluffy creatures. I held my breath. Oh my! Bears. I almost bumped into two bears. They were too busy playing with each other to notice me. Quickly I looked around to see where the mother was. Maybe one of them wás the mother, but they both looked small. Slowly I walked a bit backwards, started to talk and made some (not too disturbing) sounds. Nothing happened, they kept on playing.
What to do?
I climbed on a boulder to have a better look. I even filmed them. Whatever I did they didn’t seem to notice me. I walked a bit closer and walked back again. Repeated that several times before the mother bear showed up. She climbed on a rock and lifted her head to look around. I saw that she saw me. I walked away slowly. I knew they would go, the only question was where to? Will they hide in a cave, walk “my route” towards the mountain pass or are they much better rock climbers then I expected? Probably the latter.
Although it was a bit tricky, I decided to climb up on the scree slope and traversed about 100 metres above my route towards the mountain pass. In the meantime I talked, I sing and tried not to fall. The bears were gone. I’m sorry that I interrupted their play, but also so so happy to have witnessed this beautiful moment. I smiled and smiled and smiled. Wow!
What a great start of the day!
Wow! Did you ever feel like carrying bear spray on the hike? That must have been such a beautiful experience.
Hi Andy,
I don’t think it is needed to carry bearspray, it’s only brown bears here and you hardly get to see them.
Grtz.Eva