Does a bear **** in the woods?? You betcha

Skagway, AK

History Lesson for today: The bears are awake and out wandering around looking for FOOD!!! And although we've been told that bears mainly eat berries, grubs, roots and various other items, they also eat MEAT!! And they've been asleep all winter and they are really, really HUNGRY!!

Which is why, when you come across a trail marker like the one above you pay special attention. This deposit right in the middle of the trail wasn't a case of bad manners. No, this was the bears' way of making us exclaim: Oh S**t. And we weren't pointing out to one another that the bear had poor potty training.

A find like this is usually followed to by two reactions: (1) You assess how fresh the find is. If it is still steaming in the cold air, you got problems because you're in his/her neighborhood and he/she may not know this because you've been hiking along quietly going through the 400 songs in you Ipod in your mind. So you talk loud, clap your hands and look very, very carefully around. (2) After assessing all the dangers you can think of, checking on how quick you can get at your bear spray (which is basically a super-sized can of Mace), photographing the evidence to report to the Park Ranger and assuring each other "hey, no problem", you continue your hike.

ITEMS: The upload of the photo to the blog site took longer than the download of the item photographed. If the situation you get into requires use of the bear spray the bear will be close enough to tell is he/she has bad breath.

Sunday was our day off and we wanted to get a feel for at least a little bit of the Chilkoot Trail. The first mile had enough up/down/gnarly/nasty/wet sections to make anybody with goldrush fever and a 50+ pound pack that undertaking 33 miles of the Chilkoot Trail might not be 'fun.' The good part was - - and you've got to be an optimist here - - that it was winter time so the bears were hibernating and there were no mosquitos.

We saw the Skagway chief of police (out on patrol) on the narrow dirt road which leads back towards town. I informed him of what we had found so he could pass it on to the Ranger. He asked me if I was disappointed that I didn't see the carnivore who had marked the trail. Yeah, right.