The Phelps Lake Bears

We got to hiking early today (if you call 9 am early).  I chose to hike around Phelps Lake since we have hiked parts of this trail in the past as we were going up Death Canyon and had seen a bear on the trail but this time we stayed on the trail that goes all the way around the lake.  It was about a 7 mile hike.

Phelps Lake was so pretty, like a mirror reflecting the mountains.  As we walked we enjoyed the peaceful quiet of the forest, spotted a couple of fawn, exclaimed over the numerous wild flowers and fields of flowers and watched the youthful hikers jump off ‘jumping rock’ into the freezing waters.  Just past the rock we stopped to eat our PBJ sandwiches when two girls stopped to tell us they had seen a bear with her two cubs not too far back.  I insisted we repack the lunch so as not to attract the bear to our smelly meal.  We started walking again, watching for the bear and thinking we wouldn’t see her when she pops up onto the path with the cubs following and runs ahead of us.  A family with 3 kids joined us.  We made lots of noise so the bear would keep running until she disappeared around a corner and we thought that she had headed up hill.  But, no, she was down on the lake shore searching for berries while the cubs played in the water.  We watched her for a bit and then continued our hike, ate lunch and told the ranger what we had seen.  We had acted appropriately so this bear will still fear humans and live to see another day.

Oh yes, we celebrated our 47th wedding anniversary with hamburgers and baked beans for dinner!