Anyone want to share their first encounter with a bear in the wild and share a picture? I ran into this bear at Tricorner Knob shelter in the GSMNP during summer of 2011 on a 33 miles trek.



It is the closest I ever been and it's the last time I've seen a bear. I've seen tracks and scats on recent trip, but haven't seen a hide again, yet.

Yeup that's a little to close for my comfort. Want to give a little more detail of your encounter?

My first bear encounter was i the GSMNP in July of 1977... around 5 feet.

Here's a grizzly I watched from 60 yards two springs ago...

Another grizzly track, another BP trip:

My friends and I arrived at the shelter that evening and there were another group of hikers already there. They told us they just scared a bear off no more than 5 minutes ago and we said we never saw a bear on the way in. Anyway, about few minutes after that I was preparing my stove to make me a meal and I randomly looked to my left and saw him sitting there starring at me to which I replied to the other guys, "you mean this bear?" lol. It took us a couple minutes to scare him off after a photo or three were taken. It freaked me out that he wouldn't run off immediately and kept hanging around the shelter, makes me wonder if he had a taste of human food...

That's a huge grizzly! I didn't like being that close to a black bear, let alone a grizzly!!

Did he make any noises after you knew he/she was there?

Geeze Brad, that sucker is on a carcass! How did he act when he knew you were watching. Did he make any sounds or act agitated?

Brad, what's he eating, an elk?

No, not at all. Least that I could hear. He just seems to kept rummaging in the bushes and was like 5 yards from the wall of the shelter at one point. I didn't hear any popping noisy, or noticed a bluff charge. One of the guys grabbed a stick and pounded the tin of the roof to make enough noisy to scare him off. Simple humans yelling at him didn't make him run off, but after throwing rocks near him (not hitting him) and pounding the tin roof is what eventually made him run off... He was quiet the entire time.. Weird and scary.