I have grown up in the mountains, I have seen bears many times, but this one honestly freaked me out. I was doing a road run alone near Brevard, NC. I am traveling on business currently, and staying with some friends. When I got to there house, they weren’t home, so I went for a run. No one knew where I was or what I was doing. About 2 miles from there house on a pretty deserted road (I hadn’t seen a single car in two miles) I start hearing a noise beside me in the woods. It sounds kind of big, but I figure I just spooked something and it is crashing through the underbrush. Problem is, it is staying with me, running just out of sight to my right. I slow down, it slows down. Finally, I stop, I hear it slow, and then about 25 feet in front of me, a large black bear and two cubs come out of the woods! The mama turns towards me in a fairly aggressive posture, but doesn’t come closer. I started making noise, waving my arms, and slowly backing away. The bear stays still, so I turn and run the other direction, watching it over my shoulder. It headed into the woods again, and I could hear it behind me for a while, and then it went away.
Despite being uphill, I had my fastest mile split of the night, along with by far my highest heart rate! I think the only thing that would have scared me more would have been if I had only seen the cubs. I would have been waiting for the mama to jump me at any moment. Still, a pretty interesting run tonight…does anyone have some spare run shorts? I am not sure I am going to be able to wear this pair again.
You shouldn’t have ran away…not that standing there is the easiest thing to do, but…
I saw 2 deer on my run last night. Got back to the house just as there was enough light out still. I haven’t come across the local, Brad the Bear, yet, and I’m hoping never to see a cat.
I didn’t actually run until I was a pretty good distance away. Walked slowly backwards for quite a while. Kept hoping a car would come by, but no such luck. Was quickly running through the black bear routine in my head, couldn’t remember if I was supposed to make noise or not, remembered the slowly back away part, just eventually decided i was far enough to give running a try, you are probably right though, probably should have backed away until it was completely out of sight.
Was quite an experience, I honestly can’t wait til I get home and download my Garmin data, it is going to be funny to see my speed go to zero and my heart rate spike! I have ran this road a couple of times, and this is the first time I have seen any wildlife at all. When my friends got home and i told them about it, they mentioned that they didn’t think they had bears up here (their area, not the NC mountains in general), I said “You have at least 3.”
I have had one mountain lion experience in Colorado, and it sucked, damn thing was stalking me. Luckily it was at the top of a cliff line and I was at the bottom. Problem was I didn’t know the trail, and wasn’t sure where it would be able to get down. Thankfully it eventually lost interest. That one was also not as bad because I wasn’t alone. Cats suck, but to me the worst are the hogs, but at least with those you can climb a tree.
Crazy thing is, this was on a road, not a trail! If I had been in the woods, I wouldn’t have been quite so surprised. Not a ton of houses, but several, pretty low traffic, I saw 3 cars or so in the 4 miles. This is a road on top of a mountain that doesn’t really go anywhere other than to the houses that are up here.
If the bear don’t have a hump on its back, I am way less afraid. However, Momma bears do scare me. Sounds like you did right, but in bear talk if you don’t engage the black bears they aren’t generally man hunters. The Griz scare the crap out of me and I went to school there. Good thing for NC no Griz, except during football season every few years or so…
Wow, that’s going to be a good story for a lifetime. Funny, because when I’m in that area of NC, I’m always looking for black bears, they are about the only wild animal I haven’t seen yet in that area. I’ve always envisioned seeing them on a hiking trail and not running on the road. I’ll have to start looking on the roads too.
When I was in Yellowstone a couple years ago, we came across a momma girzzly and her two cubs but they were, luckily, a safe distance away. Later in the day though, we heard a story at the gift shop that this momma had charged a group of four hikers that stumbled on her and charged the hikers , came to an abrupt stop about ten yards away, then turned and took off. I imagine the hikers were in the gift shop looking for some new shorts when they relayed this story.
have had one mountain lion experience in Colorado, and it sucked, damn thing was stalking me. Luckily it was at the top of a cliff line and I was at the bottom. Problem was I didn’t know the trail, and wasn’t sure where it would be able to get down. Thankfully it eventually lost interest. That one was also not as bad because I wasn’t alone. Cats suck, but to me the worst are the hogs, but at least with those you can climb a tree. where were ya for that one? I get spooked about Kitty. I’m fine with running Mags alone but WILL NOT go on Switzerland alone. Above 10k I also feel a bit better as they are not known (according to ranger “bob”) to go that high. Then a buddy tells me he saw one (a young one) at 11k… there goes that theory.
I agree. Black bears don’t scare me. Although coming across a mother with cubs would be quite alarming. I’ve had a couple of interactions with black bear over the years and found that as long as you don’t make any sudden movements they will usually be moving in an opposite direction pretty quickly.
Mountain Lions on the other hand spook the hell out of me. I’ve never seen one but when I’m out mountain biking solo I can usually scare myself pretty good just thinking about the possibilities. We usually have a few that run into the foothills neighborhoods every year here in Boise. Last year one was spotted frequenting a popular trail higher up. Needless to say I stayed clear of that trail for a while.
We were running a trail in the Estes Park area, sorry, I don’t recall the name, so, actually not all that far from Boulder. We were in Estes climbing, and decided to bag it after three pitches because the clouds were rolling in, it ended up not being too bad, so we went for a run. That climb was at an area called Bookends on Lumpy Ridge. We then hiked back to the car and ran in the opposite direction, seemed to be a somewhat popular trail, I remember seeing an elevation sign in the parking lot that was somewhere in the 8000 range I think, I just remember looking, because it was my second day in CO after flying in from TN, and I was suffering a bit from the altitude. I don’t know if that helps at all, at least the general area. I remember being able to see one of the more famous 14ers off in the distance, Longs maybe.
That is actually the only time I have ever seen a cat in the wild. I doubt it was really stalking us, but it sure felt that way. Probably more curious than anything. I was certainly glad there was a natural barrier between us though.
Haven’t seen a bear yet but I’d lose it if I did. There’s alot of bears around here (I live at the base of Big Bear) and i’ll eventually see one.
I’ve seen a cougar once riding on a remote climb which goes to a water station. It crossed the road about a block ahead of me and just glanced over. It looked alot mangier than the ones you see in the zoo.
I’ve had a hawk ‘peck’ at my helmet, and I came within a few feet of coyotes, falcons, and owls. One of my favorite things about being an endurance athlete is being out in nature.
Lions are scary for the mtb gang as we seem to be running away, just like prey. Having a big dog along seems to be a bit of a buffer, because fido don’t know the cat could kick his ass so he barks all tough like and puts some doubt in the cat. I think cats have enough smarts to at least ponder that a big dog would not be an easy kill. (even though it would)
In Montana they are using the Russian bear dogs to discourage the griz from hanging around. They are fast fast fast and bark and nip at the bears and just give an unpleasant experience so they just move on. Might be nice to have some of those boys as jog dogs in bear country.
My only big cat experience was when I was a young pup hunting with my father. It was getting toward evening and started to snow. My pops wanted me to walk about a mile down a fire trail, wait for about 20 min and return to the truck. He was bigger and faster than me and was going to go down to the bottom of the valley and circle back up, possibly moving any deer that we had seen there before up to me.
I had this really really bad feeling of bad mojo going down and kept slowing down and looking around. Walk about 100 yards and squat turn a 360 and look some more. Then continue doing the same thing over and over. After sitting and waiting the designated spot for 20 min with a real feeling of impending doom, I headed back up to the truck.
Not 200 yards from where I had stopped to wait, there were some huge cat tracks crossing the road. So I started back tracking myself with falling snow filling in the tracks as I went. That damn cat had been tracking me since I left my dad.
When my dad joined me he got real serious and told me I did good. We tracked that cat and just about as soon as my dad had hooked up with me, he wondered away and was gone. Never saw him, but he sure was checking me out. That was over 40 years ago, and I still remember that creepy feeling yet today. I really think he knew I had a big gun and he had big teeth, and maybe there was a meal in it for him somewhere.
Yosemite National Park, 6am last hike of our vacation. We hear a shrieking noise and a baby deer running for his life dashes 5 feet from us with a cougar on its tail. Sharp turn and they dash again 4 feet from us, while we stand still and shocked. The cougar catches bamby and holds him by its neck. Then we realize what´s going on and start walking away really fast in case the cat wants dessert……
Hope you sre not in any of the challenges and tried to log your run in without subtracting the walking parts of your run.
LOL
Was in Vermont last week . Think I saw a pocupine and a young black bear. Heard crashing in the woods , looked that way and saw a vlack four footish long and high thing running away. had to be a bear. Most cases they are more afraid of you. This is what happens when with cubs (As you know.) or when humans feed them ot they have been living around them. Fun and scary at the same time. I like that.= nothing like a good racing heart to get you going.
Yeah, black bears in general don’t scare me, and in all of the other times I have seen them they have either been far enough away, or just a single bear, and most have ran they second they saw me. We did have one that really wanted in the door of the shelter we were staying in on a backpacking trip in the Smokies. This was before they removed the chain link sections from the front of the AT shelters there.
This was the first time I had ever startled a female with cubs, and all that was running through my head were stories of this happening with bad endings. At this point, a couple of days later, I just consider it a cool experience. The bears were beautiful, and I am honestly glad I got to see them. However, at the time, I would have strongly preferred a small fluffy bunny to a big old mama bear with big claws and teeth.
