Palmetto Bear, Ursine Affair

Over the past couple of years, I have been graced with some really interesting wildlife encounters. I've been face-to-face with a mountain lion outside of Aspen. I've seen a fox killing a marmot on Handies Peak. I've seen moose in areas with supposedly sparse moose populations. I've seen several bears throughout Colorado. I've had afternoon tea with a Sasquatch (allow me just a bit of hyperbole here, would you?). And this past Sunday, I got to add another creature sighting to the memory bank: I saw my first South Carolina bear*.

Simone and I were hiking in Jones Gap State Park, reconnoitering for boulders (well, I was looking for boulders; she was looking for raccoon poop to eat and ungainly squirrels to dispatch). We came around a bend at the top of a cove, when the forest exploded, and a relatively small, stocky black bear sprinted for the top of an opposite hill. Being that it is a South Carolina bear, it belted out a rebel yell as it crested the hilltop. I was psyched!

Unfortunately, it all happened too quickly for me to snap a picture. So it goes. Below are a few pictures of Colorado wildlife, none of which are great, I am aware. But this blog is primarily a place for me to purge some of the photos I've collected over the years, and so I will.




Marauding Marmot




A black bear across the way from our campsite in the San Juans this summer. Needless to say, it gave us pause (sorry).





Meese



"You want a piece, bitch!?"





Dingo



*I'm well aware that bears, lions, tigers, birds, bees, and any other fauna one might wish to name don't give a shit about those cartographic contrivances we call borders. Ultimately, the fact that this bear happened to be south of the SC/NC border only matters to human chumps like me. I doubt this bear has any SC state flag emblems on any of its polo shirts.