Sunday, September 21, 2008
We saw a GRIZZLY BEAR!!!
This morning once we got going, we talked about several places we could go and hike. Shelli originally wanted to do another death hike, but since i could not even walk a straight line without flinching in pain due to our last quad burner, she agreed to go on a hike with a little less elevation change. Jared had to study today, so he told us of a place called Eagle River where we could go on a really cool hike. We dropped him off to study and then we headed out. The drive was beautiful and the weather was quite good. From what we have been told, drizzly with a few rays of sunshine is Alaskan equivalent to "not a cloud in the sky". Once we got to the trailhead, we realized that we couldn't go because the trail we wanted to go on because it was shut down due to the grizzlies feeding on the salmon in the river. So we headed out on another trail which turned out to be an awesome choice. We hiked between two huge mtn ranges for about three miles and on the way out we noticed that pretty much everyone we passed was carrying bear mace. I had some three day old gatorade in my bottle so i figured if we were confronted with a bear, that would have to do. We reached the turn around point and headed back. Apparently, up here, they don't get the full range of fall colors, but they do get yellow, and it is the absolute brightest yellow I have ever seen on trees. When we got close to being back, we stopped off to take a picture by the part of the river that you were allowed to hike by. We walked up and were looking around when we heard something splashing in the river. We looked over and probably 50 feet away from us was a HUGE grizzly bear going after a fish. Once he got his meal, he quickly headed out of sight and back into the brush. Even though i had a camera in my hand through the entire 7 second ordeal, I was so mesmorized the giant that i didn't even think to pick it up and shoot. Once the bear had left, and shelli had let go of her death grip on my arm, i breathed again. I didn't think it would be that cool to see one for just a second or two, but IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME. We finished hiking out and left for home. We picked up Jared from studying and told him about out little adventure. He told us he had been in alaska for 5 years and never seen a grizz, which made us even more stoked about our sighting.
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Jesse!! I am so stoked that you are blogging about your adventures... you also forgot to mention that you had a Sue sighting at Denver International Airport as well!! hahaha! jk... glad to see you guys are doing awesome... and are still alive! Pictures are amazing... esp the puddle reflection and the yellow tree... YELLOW! BEAUTIFUL!! Tell Shell's I say HI!!
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