My experiences with Bears (outside of a car) was first in Yosemite on a trail up towards Yosemite Falls. At the time when we both saw each other we sort of both went in the other direction afraid of each other. I was 17 and walking along the trail alone and saw a bear. I had not weapons and wasn't prepared at all psychologically for this. So, I just went in the opposite direction and luckily so did the bear. I never forget how I felt in that situation.
My next experience I felt safer because my father and I were in my 1974 International Harvester Scout II 4 wheel drive with my then likely 5 to 8 year old son and we were very remote on a dirt road within 10 to 20 miles of my land then in the Mt. Shasta area. We were driving down a very remote dirt road that likely had been made for logging sometime in the 20th century when a bear crossed our path. It stood up on it's hind legs to fight us or to confront us. I'm not sure who was more surprised the bear or us. I backed the vehicle up so it wouldn't bite one of my tires and puncture it or break a window or a door out and try to cause harm to us. The bear just stood there for a moment and finally realized we weren't directly threatening it and finally got down on all fours and walked non-chalantly off into the forest.
My third experience is likely the funniest because it was a Grizzly bear in Yellowstone eating flowers in the summer (which is springtime for Yellowstone) because in the mountains you go from spring back towards fall and winter in places like that.
I saw the Ranger arrest someone for getting too close to the bear. The rangers do this because they don't want people injured and they don't want bears to get too used to people being that close either.
In 1958 when I was 10 my father and mother and a 5 year older male cousin and I went to Yellowstone and at that time 20 to 50 grizzly bears were being fed by people out their car windows. I think this was stopped by rangers eventually when bears found they could get more food (and freaked out people) when they just started ripping the doors off of cars to get at the food more easily. They do this by simply putting their claws where the door meets the body of the car and ripping the door off easily.
Another experience I was with my family camped near the trail up to Vernal Falls in Yosemite with my family. We heard screaming and noise that night and soon we saw the shadow of a bear walk by our tent. After that, I got up and walked to where the noise and crying and yelling was only to see a Camper van ripped into pieces with food strewn all over the place as well as the people's possessions.
They must not have taken their food and thrown a rope over a high limb on a tree and put their food in a bag like they were supposed to.
However, anything like perfume or candy bars or insect repellent that smells strong can make them tear off doors, break windows out of vehicles or tear campers or motor homes apart with their claws.
So, if you have food or something that smells good to them don't think you are safe in your motor home or other vehicle.
Birds, bears, bikers all play into Putin’s stunts
Russian prez on media blitz to portray himself as a ‘regular guy.’
By The Associated Press / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, September 6, 2012, 12:48 PM
Alexei Druzhinin/AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin, foreground, flies in a motorized hang glider alongside a Siberian white crane, on the Yamal Peninsula, in Russia.
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MOSCOW — Start with manly ventures — flying, hunting, scuba-diving. Add
an element of danger — polar bears, tigers, fighter jets. Throw in a
bare chest here and there.
In Russian politics, Vladimir Putin is both the star of the show and the stuntman.
The Russian president’s flight Wednesday in a motorized hang glider purportedly helped young white Siberian cranes learn how to migrate. But it also was the latest in a dozen-year series of telegenic escapades.
GALLERY: VLADIMIR PUTIN IN ACTION: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
The media events portray him as both exceptionally bold and just a regular guy who enjoys proletarian pastimes like hunting and fishing. Although critics say Putin is tremendously wealthy, his stunts are careful to avoid any suggestion of riches. Putin — unlike John Kerry — will never be filmed going windsurfing.
Putin is even willing to show a vulnerable side. He confessed that the hang glider’s veering and yawing “gets the adrenaline going” and once was filmed being thrown to the mat by a 10-year-old Japanese girl who was a judo expert.
Some of Putin’s notable stunts:
TOP GUN
Putin and George W. Bush may have had little in common, but they both understood that showing up in a fighter jet makes a dramatic entrance.
Putin did it first, in March 2000, flying into war-torn Chechnya in the rear seat of a Sukhoi-27 advanced fighter jet.
Coming just a few days before Russia’s presidential election, the stunt aimed to bolster Putin’s image as the man who could wipe out the Chechen separatists, in contrast to predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who had allowed Chechnya to become virtually independent and gruesomely lawless.
SEABED FIND
The low point of Putin’s stunts may have been his 2011 scuba dive in the strait connecting the Black and Azov seas. He came up from the dive holding fragments of what were said to be 6th century B.C. Greek jugs, saying “the boys and I found them.”
Critics snorted. The seabed was only about seven feet deep and the likelihood that the fragments had hidden in plain sight for more than 2,500 years seemed slim. Some joked that Putin’s staff had bought the pottery at IKEA.
A few months later, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted the jug fragments had been planted.
In Russian politics, Vladimir Putin is both the star of the show and the stuntman.
The Russian president’s flight Wednesday in a motorized hang glider purportedly helped young white Siberian cranes learn how to migrate. But it also was the latest in a dozen-year series of telegenic escapades.
GALLERY: VLADIMIR PUTIN IN ACTION: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
The media events portray him as both exceptionally bold and just a regular guy who enjoys proletarian pastimes like hunting and fishing. Although critics say Putin is tremendously wealthy, his stunts are careful to avoid any suggestion of riches. Putin — unlike John Kerry — will never be filmed going windsurfing.
Putin is even willing to show a vulnerable side. He confessed that the hang glider’s veering and yawing “gets the adrenaline going” and once was filmed being thrown to the mat by a 10-year-old Japanese girl who was a judo expert.
RIA NOVOSTI/REUTERS
Vladimir Putin sits in a motorized deltaplane near a crane at Yamalo-Nenets district September 5, 2012.
TOP GUN
Putin and George W. Bush may have had little in common, but they both understood that showing up in a fighter jet makes a dramatic entrance.
Putin did it first, in March 2000, flying into war-torn Chechnya in the rear seat of a Sukhoi-27 advanced fighter jet.
Coming just a few days before Russia’s presidential election, the stunt aimed to bolster Putin’s image as the man who could wipe out the Chechen separatists, in contrast to predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who had allowed Chechnya to become virtually independent and gruesomely lawless.
© Reuters Photographer / Reuters/REUTERS
Television image shows acting Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting in the cockpit of a Sukhoi-27 fighter jet.
The low point of Putin’s stunts may have been his 2011 scuba dive in the strait connecting the Black and Azov seas. He came up from the dive holding fragments of what were said to be 6th century B.C. Greek jugs, saying “the boys and I found them.”
Critics snorted. The seabed was only about seven feet deep and the likelihood that the fragments had hidden in plain sight for more than 2,500 years seemed slim. Some joked that Putin’s staff had bought the pottery at IKEA.
A few months later, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted the jug fragments had been planted.