Bear Sighting: Is there an "App" for That?

Why yes! It’s the Appalachian Trail! Val and I had a close encounter today with two bears. Thank the Lord we didn’t do anything differently than what we did! Pictures HERE!

It all started when we decided to go hiking in the Shenandoah Mountains today. We were excited and having a great time out there for a while. We saw some chipmunks, pretty red birds, nice flowers, even a doe and her fawn. We saw some other people on the trails, chatted with them a bit, then decided to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail. We met a few hikers who were doing the entire thing—Georgia to Maine! One of the guys we met was from Scotland and had just finished high school, and this is how he decided to spend a few months before starting college. Cool kid, awesome accent. =) He said he was pretty disappointed that he was half way through and hadn’t seen a bear yet.

Valarie and I had a snack and hiked a bit further, then decided to turn back and head to the car. We were trying to be quiet so maybe we’d see more deer, but instead we stumbled upon… BLACK BEARS! We both stopped and stayed quiet for a minute. I knew running away and getting excited would be a bad idea, but I didn’t know what else to do or how to get out of the situation. Luckily for us, Val had read an article about bears and remembered the things to do in this situation.

Val said to make noise to let them know we were there (you don’t want to sneak up on a bear!), so we talked in normal volume and tones, and we clapped our hands, and when we thought they were gone, we started walking again. A few steps later… Here they come! The two of them must have gotten spooked further ahead, because they were rushing down the trail in our direction. So we turned right around and walked—not ran—in the direction we’d just come from, making noise and talking in regulated tones the whole way. At one point, I looked back at Val to see how far behind us the bears were, but they were only a couple of yards away and walking toward us! I knew I couldn’t let Val know about that because I think she was flipping out inside even more than I was. She said the look on my face said I had a great secret, but that I couldn’t tell—and she was so right!

We kept walking, talking, clapping, singing, etc., hoping to see more people, but we didn’t see anyone. I looked back again a couple of minutes later, and while the bears were no longer there, we still didn’t want to go back that direction. We made it to a clearing at a creek and sat there for a while. I had to use a tree, we both needed to sit down for a minute, and we wanted to wait till we saw more people coming from one direction of the trail or the other. We sat for about 15 minutes or so, sang a fabulous rendition of Zippedee-doo-da, and when we didn’t see anyone (or, thankfully, anyTHING!), we decided to keep walking the direction we had come from (opposite from the bears, of course) and find Skyline Drive, which is the highway that runs along the mountains. We had remembered seeing it just a half-mile or so up the trail, and we knew it went right by where we’d parked my car.

Up the trail we went, praying the whole way not to see any other bears! We came to the highway and tried to find the best way to get through the weeds without getting poison ivy (Val is highly allergic). We started up one way, I got bombarded with thorns; we went up another way, and we made it! Ironically enough, at the place where we came up to the road, there was a deer crossing sign. If you ask me, it would be better to post a BEAR crossing sign!

We flagged down the first vehicle we saw. We were not entirely too worried about getting arrested for hitch hiking; we figured a bear sighting could be a special exception! Especially since the bears were blocking the only path back to the parking lot. The nice, elderly couple who picked us up is from Louisiana, and they were happy to give us a ride back down to the visitor center/parking lot. Whew! We could have walked there, but we didn’t realize at the time how close we were by the road. Oh well! We made new friends. The comic relief in all this is the fact that we had to clear out a spot for ourselves in their minivan because it was full of traveling stuff… including a real-life pair of granny panties! Got to laugh. =)

We went inside the little gift shop/diner where we’d parked the car and asked the ladies working there if we needed to alert anyone that we had a bear sighting. They said no, that people see them all the time. They were a bit more sympathetic when we told them how close they were and that they were following us down the trail! Thinking about it later, we realized how terribly things could have turned out had we done anything differently!

We got in the car to find a nice overlook where we could eat our picnic lunch, saw another deer crossing the road in front of us, and we just so happened to stop at the “Rocky Top Overlook”! Now, everyone who knows my football views knows I’m not a UT fan, but even I got excited as a Tennessean seeing a Tennessee reference in VA! We ate our PB and bagels, chatting about our close encounter, and that’s when I told Val how close they had been. Yeah, glad I didn’t tell her when I looked back and saw them 8 or so feet away. =) A “Bearable” distance indeed! (Added by Val.)

We found out later that being charged by bears like that is called a “bluff charge”, which is what black bears do when guarding territory where they’ve just killed something. In which case, it’s REALLY good that we didn’t go back by the place again later. Apparently it’s very rare to be charged by black bears, but the one exception is when you’re in their territory like we unknowingly were. All the things we did were exactly right, especially since we were in the very rare instance of being “run off” by black bears.

We made it back to the B&B without further incident and got cleaned up for dinner. More on the really awesome B&B later; I think the bear encounter is enough for one entry!