Yesterday I spied a black bear walking along the skid trail about 100 feet ahead of me. It was rather small - guess 30" high at the shoulder. While trying to retrieve my camera from my pack, I must have made some noise (or smell) that gave me away. It's pace slowed, it glanced over its shoulder at me and was gone. I'm unlucky at photographing bears. While you won't always see bear, you can see signs of their presence. Picture one shows bear claw marks in a beech tree that indicate the tree was climbed by a startled bear or a bear seeking beech nuts to eat. The second picture shows a marking tree - look for bite and claw marks on this beech. Bears do this to trees to communicate with other bears (I heard the message loud and clear too - a bear standing at least 6 feet off the ground is in the neighborhood!)
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