During college, I worked on a Trail Crew for the US Forest Service. We had come across a huge growth of huckleberries. We brought up a brush saw to clear the trail. I was in the lead with the saw. My partner was back down the trail a ways. I put the saw down and put on my chaps and pulled the starting cord on the saw. A bear exploded out of the huckleberries.
I’ve had people tell me that they would have stood there and faced the bear with the saw. Others told me they would have played dead. A few have told me they would have climbed a tree. One even said he’d have thrown the bear a sandwich.
I forgot all my bear safety training and ran back down the trail as fast as I could.
I don’t think I outran the bear. As a matter-of-fact, I don’t really have any advice as to what you should do if you come nose-to-nose with a bear in a huckleberry patch. The best thing is to probably not be so caught up in your thoughts that you don’t know there’s a bear in that huckleberry patch.
Personally, I think the bear was grinning at me like that Cheshire Cat as I was running away. Don’t expect to find any good-natured Bears like that these days, though. They hate hippies.
Your story reminds me of a family friend who lives in the mountains of Virginia. Shorty had a few apple orchards. One day, he was checking on the apple development and BAM.. out of a tree fell a black bear RIGHT in front of Shorty. Shorty screamed; the bear screamed. Shorty ran one way.. the bear ran the other way. Both kept glancing back to see if the other “guy” was chasing. When he told me that story... I laughed. I could just picture it!
Wow that was lucky! For some reason he didn’t chase you, you might have startled him as well.
#30 So that bear was your huckleberry.....
Tombstone ref.