I was at the bottom of a ski hill in the off-season, so there was no snow and the mountain was quite green.  There were some people gathering around the base area, and I decided to go for a hike by myself.  I went straight up the hill on a ‘fall-line’ type of trail.  The hike was with relative ease and quite short in duration.  I got to the top of this lower section, and the mountain flattened out as the trail went back into the woods,  a typical mid-mountain section. There seemed to be a transition in the relative ‘exposure’ between the sloped ‘face’ section I climbed and this now flat area which was more like a corridor in the forest.  Suddenly I had the thought of the potential to encounter some bears in this area, as it was the time of year where one would expect them to be out foraging, getting ready for winter.  At the same time I overheard a wild-life documentary narrative also talking about bears, so that shifted my frame of mind from expecting a harmless benign hike into gradually something more potentially chaotic or dangerous.  I decided to head back from where I had come, not interested in taking the risk of an up-close encounter.  As I made my way back I heard rustling in the bushes, so I turned around to see what it was.  Sure enough, a bear had popped out and was approaching.  It didn’t seem like a full-on attack, maybe it was just a curious young bear who wanted to inspect me.  He/she was brown and didn’t seem full-grown.  It was dimly lit, but I could see something quite distinctive and memorable which was fur around the eyes and periphery of the head was a shimmering golden color.  I decided to then hasten my departure, not wanting to have a more intimate engagement with this bear.  I launched off the top of this slope, which was like a bit of a ledge, got going fast and caught some beautiful air.  I got into a tuck position in mid-air which kept me balanced, composed, and aerodynamically in sound shape, which was just like in a World Cup downhill.  As I got close to the bottom I zoomed by some Asian tourist hikers who were heading up the same trail I had been on, in that traditional meandering, leisurely way, and I shouted to them as I passed by “There’s bears up there!”

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