Close Encounters of the Bear-able kind

The view from Zealand Cliff in the White Mountains

New Hampshire has lots of wildlife. Most of the time they keep to themselves, hiding in the woods. If you get out early, or late at night you might run into them. Literally. Moose, in particular, can be found just standing in the road. They don’t seem to see well and will stare at you, trying to figure out exactly who or what you are, before they lumber on their way. Driving at night requires full attention and good braking skills. Most of my sightings have been early in the morning on the way to a hike somewhere in the White Mountains.

This moose, for example, was laying by the side of the road sunning herself ( I say her because I thought she had a sort of feminine air about her. I wasn’t going to get close enough to check it out for sure.)  There were about a dozen of us  snapping photo’s of her. Maybe she couldn’t see us, or maybe she didn’t care. She never reacted or made a move to leave.

On another morning we found this bear scarfing down berries right by the turnoff for our hike to Zealand Cliff. We pulled to the shoulder and spent a good fifteen minutes snapping photo’s from the safety of our car. This guy was big and we took no chances. We can’t say the same for the fellow who left his truck across the road and ambled over to stand behind our car to take some pictures. My friend put her camera on video, figuring we might have a potential viral You Tube video if the bear took off after him. This photo was taken at the exact moment the bear picked his head up from his breakfast and stared at our foolish friend in the road. The fellow got the message and slowly backed off and returned to safety.

We have bears in the campground. They tend to congregate on the upper levels, back up in the woods, and we know not to hang bird feeders out or leave food lying around.  They also usually don’t come around during the day. I said usually. This photo is of our campsite. Note the red chair I like to sit in while I read, or contemplate the morning over a cup of coffee. We are in a quiet cul de sac of five sites, the road you see is our driveway out.  So, imagine  my shock when I grabbed my kindle to go out and read for a while at 9:30 in the morning and saw a bear running full tilt down the drive. He made the turn into our site, brushed past my chair and took off down the  hill behind us toward the pond. I’m not sure what set him running, but I was very glad I had not been sitting in that chair watching him charge at me. That’s a close encounter I can do without.