On the bear topic. We had seen a lot more black bears in this area previously. In fact, it is the same place I shot a bear 2 years ago. We skinned it out and got the hide in camp and cooling in the creek and when we got back to the carcass there was another black bear eating it. Only saw 4 this trip. The one in the pics was actually a really nice bear, but we were kind of focused...
When we got back to spike camp with my ram, we had a good view of a fairly large drainage, and we of course glassed pretty much everything in sight. We saw a black bear over a mile away stop walking, stick his nose in the air, and start running in our direction. He crossed a river, nearly followed our route up through the alders (he did it in about 20 minutes) and came to within 200 yards of camp. We thought he was smelling the meat, but apparently he was after the gut pile, because he kept going up valley.
Pretty cool to watch him follow his nose. Once in a while, he'd stop and do circles, or wander back and forth until he caught the scent again, and then he'd beeline.
