Pulling a Treadwell

We walked down Saltery Road for a few hours. It was actually HOT! I wanted to strip, but people ride down with their ATVs, so I suffered through the heat. Although it is a technically a road, we still had a pleasant walk and explored areas slightly off the road.

The fireweed is in full bloom, and it is pretty much the last local flower of the season to bloom. When it reaches the top, "summer" is over. It's getting really close.

Again, we decided to take some trails just off the road. Pretty, but.....

As we were walking down one path, we started to quickly realize we were on a bear path, one used by them recently and often to get to the river. We got outta there fast! Probably not the smartest decision of the day. I think we "pulled a Treadwell!"

As we were nearing the the end of our walk, about 50 yards in front of us a very full-sized mature male bear walks out from the bushes to the road. I do have what I call "bear sense". I detected the bear before I saw him. (Hopefully I can keep this sense as I continue to explore the island.) He was a comfortable distance away, so I just waived my arms and yelled "hey bear." He studied us, thought about it, and then continued to walk across the road. (I did not get a picture.) Less than a minute later, we hear fisherman start to yell "bear bear!!!" That big boy surprised them! You could feel the panic. They shot off a cracker shot and obviously the bear ran away.

The big question for us at that point, since we needed to go down the road, was which way did he run off? We just briskly moved out of there laughing the whole way. If we would have got that on video, it would have gone viral. It was pretty good scene! We see very large bear, bear sneaks up on fishermen, fishermen panic, cracker shot fired....not sure I can capture it in words! It was just safe enough to be fun.