Over a week ago I said I was going to get back to blogging. Since then I have been busier than a cat trying to cover crap on a marble floor.
Basically I was getting ready for last weekend. My friend was coming in and it was time for our annual ATV ride into the backwoods. This year we had four days planned. The first two would include camping one night. The second two days would be all day rides from my house and back.
For myself there was also another reason for the ride. I just recently brought home a new to me mechanical backwoods drifter. It is the red ATV and it is a 2003 Yamaha Grizzly 660.
Since it is a used ATV I didn’t really want to be alone with it on my first trip into the backwoods. If it were to break down, I’d have a long walk home. As chance would have it, it did break down on the very first day.
We had just gotten up to the main gaswell road on Bolt Mountain, about 6 miles from my house, when the lower a-frame fell off the front left side. Had my friend not been there and without the help of a couple of other ATV riders, I would have been stranded because to fix the problem, the front of the ATV needed to be off the ground. I brought plenty of tools to fix about any problem that could arise except for a jack. For some reason a scenario that would require the ATV to be off the ground never crossed my mind. With the breakdown, that made the second part of my plan a success. We had no more problems with the ATV and when it did break down, I wasn’t alone plus I learned of a tool I had not thought about but now see I can’t go to the mountains alone without one, a jack.
Another thing I wanted to do during the four days was try and get a picture of a bear. Due to the amount of bear sign I had seen in Spring Hollow previously I figured that would be the best place for an opportunity. I decided to camp there the first night.
The last photo is of a Black Bear track we saw almost immediately as we started toward Spring Hollow. The ink pen lying beside the track is standard length and the white lines represent the length of the track from claw to heel. This was a big bear and a heavy bear.
With raspberry and blackberry ripe right now, the chances of seeing bear along the old roads increases dramatically. We saw plenty of tracks leading into and away from Spring Hollow so I knew our chances of seeing a bear were good. I just hoped I could get to my camera fast enough.
Turns out, I had plenty of time. We set camp up in Spring Hollow about fifteen feet to the left of a fresh set of bear tracks. It wasn’t twenty minutes, we were in the process of setting up camp. Here he came up the road.
This photo is full size.
This photo has been enhanced.
I hoped he would come a little closer for some better photos but he advanced no further than about 75 yards. He stood there and watched us for two to three minutes before turning and heading in the direction he had come. I would guess his weight in the neighborhood of 250 to 300lbs. He was a big bear and would be the only one we would see that night but the first of 2 for the entire trip.
This post represents the first day out. More to come…
