MulderClan!: My wife and I just celebrated our 16th year wedding anniversary yesterday. I drag the whole family on three or four small hikes to do some maintenance on some Geocaches I own. The last geocache to be checked on was actually this one on Bear Mountain. We hiked up the main trail veering off a couple of times to the east bushwhacking the last 50m. I hopped over a small nearly dry creek bed and got to my geocache location. While searching on my hands and knees looking for the geocache I heard some branches breaking just up the hill for me. Not too concerned because at the trail head saw two or three cars parked and I was fully expecting to see a fellow hiker. There was a large log lying on the ground about 30 m above and behind me. I stopped and listened more intently as the noise stopped as well. Then the noise of breaking branches started up again and getting closer. I was fully expecting a hiker to pop his head over the fallen tree and say hello. I was not expecting to come face to face with a full mature black bear not 25-30 m in front of me. The most amazing view ever, but at the same time the scariest moment of my life (more scary then even my wedding day 16 yrs ago). I immediately called over to my wife and kids to get closer together and get back onto the trail and go down. In mean time I’m scrambling down, trying to retrieve my air horn from my bag. Once I met up with my family I handed my son my bear spray and I was holding onto the air horn planning to use that first. Kept looking behind me as we made steady progress down and thank goodness did not see the bear follow us. A hiker we encountered in the parking area commented on hearing the angst in my voice when I directed the family to get together and head back to the trail.
Alas did not find my cache and did not get a chance to locate the bag with swag left by someone else. I adopted this cache and alas it’s time to let it go. Too bad. One day hope to return to find the bag of swag and remove this now “geo-litter” from the forest.
Over and out!