January 2, 2012
Monday Geology Picture: Bear Tracks in the Snow
Posted by Evelyn Mervine
Bear track, with a Rite-in-the-Rain Geological Field Notebook for Scale, Montana, Fall 2005.
Often, geology fieldwork can be a little bit dangerous. During some undergraduate field mapping in Montana, my classmates and I encountered some bear tracks in the snow. The above picture shows one of those bear tracks with a geological field notebook for scale. For the rest of the day, we kept a careful watch out for bears and tried not to stray too far from the field vans.
Greetings and Salutations….
Good to see life is going well for you. It can be overwhelming at times, but, as long as it continues to be good, that is the important thing.
Living near the Great Smoky Mountains, I am reminded of the story of a couple of New Yorkers who were talking with a ranger about bears. The ranger told them that the bears were more afraid of them, then, they were of the bears. So, if they wore a necklace of bells, it would warn the bears that they were coming, and the black bears that live in the mountains would disappear into the woods, avoiding contact. He went on to say that they should carry a can of pepper spray, to deal with the occasional time that they ran into an overly aggressive bear.
The city-folk were fascinated by this, and vowed to take his advice. As kind of an after-thought, they said that they were heading to Yosemite later on in the month, and, they had heard there were bears there too. They wondered how they compared with the Black bears in the Smoky Mtns. The Ranger thought a moment, then said, very seriously, that there were two main differences. Firstly, the bears out West were brown, and, somewhat larger. Secondly, their scat smelled like pepper, and had little, crushed bells in it…..