Bobert's account of a face to face with a black bear got me off the chair. I hope he copies his story into this thread.

My bet is that many of us have had encounters of the kind, encounters whose outcome tends to have more to do with the animal's mood than with our own actions.

To start: I have two bear stories that come to mind.

One I've recounted on the Mudcat before, a story that involves a young black bear that walked into my home and I chased out with a walking stick.

The other one is of one April a few years back.

There had been flooding in the neighborhood so I walked a mile or so back into the hills on Last Chance Basin Road to see how the river was doing. Basin Road is a hardpan mountain road where one normally meets dogs, joggers with strollers and in season, cross country skiiers. But not this day. I had the road to myself.

Coming back it was heading toward twilight so I was moving right along. With my walking stick the sound of my travel was probably not distinctly human to any nearby ears.

Anyway as I neared the roadside barriers just before a trestle bridge, suddenly to my right a dark shape reared up over a barrier and as it landed a bear materialized, not more than 7 or 8 feet from me.

She (I felt that it was a female but full grown) stared at me, and I quickly averted my eyes to avoid challenging her. I took a step backward; she stepped forward. I held still. So did she. It was a standoff.

After an eternity she moved slowly to the side of the road and sat down. Her eyes stayed locked on me.

The problem was that in order to get home I had to get past her. The road is especially narrow there in preparation for the trestle.

Then it occurred to me that she probably didn't know what I was, and that if I said something she would realize I was human and would scare off.

I couldn't think of any words. True story. So I said, La, La, La, La.