Laura posted a great blog entry yesterday that showed our ongoing efforts to keep the bears, particularly the sow with 2 cubs (as we refer to her), away from the visitor center and the visitors! The video was great to see if you missed it, I encourage you to check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRqjf0OWl4 (The cubs as so small, cute, and at least one of them is clumsy and mischievous. If you look closely at the video, you will see that when the mother comes to retrieve the wayward cub, it actually falls out of the Yucca tree, rather than climbing down as most respectable bears might!)
Well, a few more bear stores and we may need to leave this topic for a while!
Two days ago Laura and I did the last long hike up here in the Chisos Mountains that we had yet to do, climbing Emory Peak, the tallest peak in the park, 7832 feet. We were not more than a mile or so into the hike when we came upon a couple who warned us that there was a bear in the trail ahead and it would not move off the trail. The bear was about 30-40 yards up the trail. We looked and quickly realized that the bear was a one year old or so bear, likely a male, that was in the same area a week before and also would not move when it encountered people.
Being good national park volunteers, even though this was a day off, we stepped in and took care of this bear too! If you saw the video Laura posted, this means, yelling in its direction, throwing rocks in its direction, and basically intimidating it to move off and into the woods and up into the mountains where it should be. It hung around a bit to show it was tough, but eventually did move up the slopes into the woods. We continued our hike and had a great day.
Then today at lunch, we often eat out behind the visitor center at a shaded picnic table, I looked up and saw a dark spot moving along in the brush. Looking a bit closer, we realized it was the mother and her 2 cubs back again for another visit to the basin area. We did not want them getting into the parking lot, so despite it being our lunch break, we again got on bear patrol duty. Some shouts, some thrown rocks, and we were able, at least so far for the day, divert the bear family back off into the woods.
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