Tag Archives: bears

Tahoe Summer Days

July
05
,
2022
| 0 Comments

Darlene and I spent a couple weeks in late June and early July at the Tahoe house taking care of a bunch of house maintenance, including roof repair, clearing newly fallen branches and pine needles, moving the bear box to accommodate a widening of the driveway, etc.  We took some time off from all that to go climb to the top of a very windy Mt. Rose (elev. 10,785 ft.), do some mountain biking and hike up the Five Lakes trail near Palisades/Alpine Meadows.

 

We also had another bear visitor while up working on the roof:

Click through for the full gallery:

     

Also tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Among the Giant Sequoias

June
06
,
2022
| 0 Comments

Darlene and I loaded up the van and the cats and headed out this past week for a short adventure.  First stop was to overnight under some dark skies in the San Benito mountains for a potential meteor storm from Tau Herculids.  (There was a decent meteor shower, but no full-on storm.)  We then spent the next five days in and around Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park, hiking among the magnificent giant sequoia trees, checking out Kings Canyon and exploring the Sequoia National Forest between the two national parks.  We also attempted an extended mountain bike ride from Buck Rock to Lookout Peak but had to abort due to a failure / total destruction of my rear hub – resulting in a long bike walk back.

We came across some black bears while hiking in Sequoia National Park.

Click through for the full gallery:

       

Also tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

High Speed Bear Crossing

December
16
,
2021
| 0 Comments

The noise you hear is a snow plow operating nearby, probably clearing the road intersection off-camera to the left.  An hour later, apparently while I was editing the original video clip of his dash across the road, the bear came back – with the snow plow still operating nearby — and he tried crossing again several times.  (I’ve now combined all the clips together.)

Also tagged , | Leave a comment

More Unexpected Visitors

June
03
,
2021
| 0 Comments

Well, not really so unexpected – turkeys and baby deer in Santa Cruz…

And another bear in North Tahoe…

And now, in August, a mama bear and her cub:

Also tagged , | Leave a comment

Big Bear Visit

August
17
,
2020
| 0 Comments

We had a big bear visit the Tahoe house a few days ago – for size comparison, that bear box holds two full size trash cans and then some:

Update: And another couple of visitors in September:

Also tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bear Inspection

July
09
,
2020
| 0 Comments

We came across a bear near the Tahoe house today – inspecting a neighbor’s “bear box”:

Also tagged , | Leave a comment

Ghost Bear Visit

December
02
,
2019
| 1 Comment

I noticed a curious thing on the Tahoe house front camera after a recent snowfall: first a pristine layer of snow across the driveway and then, a little later, a set of tracks across the driveway and *directly* under the camera….. but no recording of the creature that left them. This camera triggers a recording every time a passing car’s headlights even just illuminates the driveway and yet… no recording of the mysterious creature.  Spooky!

Now given the size and shape of the footprints, and how they lead under the front porch, there can be only one conclusion: it was a visit by the ghost bear!!

Also tagged , | 1 Comment

Early Morning Bear Patrol

September
02
,
2019
| 0 Comments

Video from my front camera at the Tahoe house early yesterday morning catches a bear checking the car doors of both Mark and Lindsay’s cars in the driveway.  Unfortunately my video stops short of showing how they try to pull on the door handles.  Lindsay noticed somebody’s car down the street appeared to have been opened up and searched by a bear that morning.  Matt went out the previous morning to find both of his passenger side doors wide open but nothing ransacked.  Last year, Troy found all four doors of his extended cab pickup truck open in the driveway with dirty paw prints over everything.  Looks like even if you don’t leave any food or trash in your car, this bear goes around checking for unlocked doors!

And on a related note, the Placer County Sheriff recently helped this crying cub bear get out of a trash dumpster:

 

Also tagged , | Leave a comment

Passing through Colorado

August
28
,
2018
| 0 Comments

On our return trip from Wisconsin, Darlene and I made our way down through Iowa and Missouri and across Kansas with one overnight stop and then into Colorado stopping off in Denver but failing to find anywhere nearby to grab a campsite.  (Ended up in a motel parking lot north of Boulder.)  We stayed a couple of nights in Rocky Mountain National Park to do some hiking.  The long views weren’t all that great because the smoke from the huge California wildfires were filling the skies even in Colorado.

  

Heading south, we found a spot to camp for a couple of nights in national forest land outside of Winter Park and got in some high altitude (10,000′) mountain biking.  We visited Dave and Martha at their new home in Evergreen before continuing west on I-70.  We camped out a couple of nights and did some trail riding in the hills above Eagle and had to wait out the mud in the morning in order to get the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle™ safely down the mountain again.

We also took some time to ride along Glenwood Canyon and tried to hike up to Hanging Lake late in the evening but ran out of time.  We came across a mama bear and her two cubs climbing in the trees near the trail though:

Also tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mud and Snow in Tahoe

April
23
,
2018
| 0 Comments

Troy, Resi and Aiden came up to the Tahoe house in mid-April to get a couple of last days in before Homewood and several other Tahoe resorts had their closing weekend.  Definitely spring skiing conditions with slush (and mud) at the bottom and, up top, overnight frozen snow turning too soft mid-way through the day.  But then, as they headed back to the Bay Area, the temperatures dropped and we got another snow storm Sunday night.  Jon joined me at Alpine Meadows and then Squaw Valley to enjoy a last couple of powder days for the season!

Troy got a friendly visit from a bear overnight.  He woke to find all four doors on his truck open and the evidence of a bit of ransacking from a dirty bear – so lucky it was unlocked or the bear might have broken in:

  

A cute little video of Pan falling asleep at the wheel:

Click through for the full gallery.

Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Walking with Polar Bears

November
19
,
2015
| 2 Comments

I joined Glenn and Michele last week on another segment of their extended, six-month travels (Glenn and Michele’s Most Excellent Adventure™) – this time flying up to Churchill, Canada, to stay at a small remote lodge along the Hudson Bay and go out on guided walks to see and hug polar bears!  Well, not so much hugging really.  (But they do look so huggable!)

   

Click through for the full gallery of photos and video clips from the trip.

We stayed three nights at Dymond Lake Lodge, one of three small “eco-lodges” operated by Churchill Wild, looking for polar bears and other wildlife during the day and enjoying the wonderful meals and the stars and the aurora borealis at night.  We lucked out with weather.  At this time of year we should have encountered daytime highs no greater than the teens or single digits (in Fahrenheit) even before any wind chill (as in seriously cold, the primary reason Darlene didn’t join us), but we lucked out with temps way up in the mid-20’s!  Yes, below freezing, but really relatively balmy!  Just ask the polar bears!

Speaking of which, we were able to see lots of bears and even watch an unusual encounter between two different mama bears and their cubs.  The guides are very good at approaching and reading the bears’ behavior and working to keep the experience safe for everyone, including the bears.

After several amazing days of walking out amongst the bears, we returned to Churchill for an afternoon of dog-sledding with Bluesky Expeditions and then a full day on an arctic tundra safari with Frontiers North Adventures in one of their massive custom-built “tundra buggies”.

A video montage of our polar bear encounters and other activities near Churchill.

Click through for the full gallery of photos and video clips from the trip.  Here’s a separate gallery of pictures from just the dog sledding excursion.

Michele wrote a great detailed post about our Churchill trip in her blog:

Also tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center

September
13
,
2015
| 0 Comments

This is a fantastic place to visit!  The Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center is in West Yellowstone, Montana, near the border of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  It’s a non-profit, wildlife rehabilitation and education center specializing in grizzly bears and gray wolves.  All the animals at the center were rescued: nuisance bears that would have been killed or wolves born in captivity at other facilities that could not care for them.

  

The animals are rotated through large enclosures where they can be seen by the public and are given frequent stimulation by hiding food or bones, rearranging habitat features, planting unusual scents for them to discover, stocking trout in the ponds and streams, etc.

Short video of some of the animals at the Discovery Center.

Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment