Black Bears at Shenandoah National Park

Note: This is an old post, just doing some maintenance. Please ignore if you have already looked at it.

I was minding my own business going down a Shenandoah road where I came upon a cub. I backed off a bit knowing that mamma had to be around somewhere, sure enough here she comes.


Things were going well, I keep my distance but I have to get my pics. Mamma crosses the street.
I stay still hoping she doesn't notice me. Ugh oh, not so lucky!
I guess I didn't back off enough, mama bear is going to teach Cham a lesson. Charge!
Sorry folks, I simply can't keep the camera still with my right hand, defend myself with my poles with the left and run backwards all at the same time. Some of the pics are more than little fuzzy, but you get the drift. There is a certain point where you just have to drop the camera and run for your life, and I had reached that. I looked back after I ran some and 2 more cubs drop out of the trees, mama was defending 3 cubs.

Here is a picture of a large male that I saw later in the woods. He also wasn't very pleased with me and threw me a rather dirty look, I had to back off of him too.
I ran into Binli and Michael on the trail, they are both looking good. They are becoming superhikers, they need backpacks. Here is the Slideshow:

Shenandoah Fun

I took this picture about a month ago in the Shenandoah while I was still in my bag, too lazy to get up. I also got sniffed by a black bear that day too. When you aren't moving the wildlife comes to you. And no, that ain't no muley. This little lady nearly stepped on me.

Gunpowder Bridges, Assistance needed from all

I have been plotting and planning to photograph these bridges over at the Gunpowder. I wanted the foliage to be as dark a green as possible so I set my sights on Labor Day weekend. The hour I spent photographing these bridges proved most entertaining. I got down to the Gunpowder off the road no problem. I took a few photos of an egret and then decided to cross the Gunpowder with my camera on my head so it wouldn't get wet. I used a beaver dam to get out of the water. Whoever said beavers were great dam architects were wrong. They can't build a dam worth a damn, the stupid thing collapsed and I fell into a brier patch which had some sort of poison ivy at its base. Once I got up and got out of it some guy riding a Vespa on the bridge started sexually harassing me from the bridge. I only was able to bellow out a few mother-fuckers until he sped away. Then I took some more pictures only to find myself buried chest deep in mud. I thought in might be interesting to die a slow death via starvation because I couldn't get out of the mud in one of the most population-dense areas around. I managed to crawl out of the mud on my belly, my camera got very dirty. I was very dirty too and it took 2 showers to get clean, days later my ankles are still covered with red splotches and my clothes are ruined.

Not that any of this is interesting to any of you, but I do need you gentle readers to take a look at these pictures and tell me which one you like the best from the pics.

Pioneer Mountains in Idaho, pics finally

I spent 10 days in Idaho and Utah with Keith and Lisa backpacking. Rather than explain the details I've decided to let the pictures do the talking. We did a lot of hiking, we saw a lot of critters, both two legged and four legged critters stole things from me. One of them shit in my shoe after it stole it. Otherwise I had a very good time.