WARNING! Bear in the Woods!

You've got four different ecological areas you can explore in Yosemite National Park. You've got the high Sierra mountains, granite cliffs, sequoia tree groves and the valley...With over 795,000 acres, I don't think you could ever get tired of exploring this wonderful park. It's got the greatest concentration of granite domes in the world, and the greatest single exposed monolith (extremely large upstanding single rock) in the world. There are THREE groves of Sequoia trees, the largest grove being Mariposa Grove with over 500 of the giant Sequoia trees. So far, we've been exploring the fabulous waterfalls, which are at their peak power in spring, like late May, early June....We've seen the Bridal Veil Falls, today we went to see Yosemite Falls in the valley...but FIRST, the "BAHR"!

50 yds away

While we were in the valley today, about 25 miles from the south park entrance, checking out the incredibly beautiful Yosemite Falls, we saw a young brown BEAR within about 50 yards of us, scrounging for bugs and insects. He got up on his hind legs (he still looked small) and tore off, no, make that RIPPED off a huge hunk of bark off a small tree and proceeded to make a lunch out of what he found. He was located between a road and a path that hikers and joggers use. Several joggers ran by, oblivious to the bear.  Not until about six or seven cars stopped and people started snapping photos like crazy did he sense trouble and then hunkered down onto the ground to wait us out. We left before he did......I wanted to get just a little bit closer, but Eldy yanked me back. I know, I know, that was stupid, but he was very busy eating, and two joggers ran by and some walkers and they didn't even see him, and they were much closer! Oh, well....got my "bar" photo or two, very exciting!

On to the waterfalls! We'll see you at Yosemite Falls tomorrow!  Bye.....