I only have a few bear stories. One of the "don't try this at home, kids" stories would be when a friend was hunting, thought he shot a bear with his bow, but couldn't find it. So he called me up to help him because I'm good at tracking. Long story short, I'm following fresh bear prints on my hands and knees, in the dark with only a little flashlight. I crawled into this thicket of small fir trees... and the place exploded around me as the bear jumped up and ran out. In that instance I asked my self what the hell I was doing, handed my friend the flashlight and told him it was his turn. Needless to say, he did not hit the bear. There were 4 of us there helping him. The others after said I was braver than they were, but I think I was stupider than they were. (I know it's properly "more stupid" but stupider fits better for how dumb that was!)

It does go to show though that the bear was indeed more scared of us than we were of it. If we had been making noise when tracking it, it would have just kept creeping away and never have stopped to hide. It is rare for an attack, but like others have mentioned, do the things that reduce your chances of an encounter. It'll still happen someday, just have to try and reduce smells as much as possible.