Hehehe, if I ever had to face down a Grizzly, I'd just start packing my back pockets full of peanut butter and jelly, cause I KNOW my a$$ is toast!! That bear wouldn't be smellin' fear, he'd be smellin' Lincoln Logs, big enough to walk on.
Mountain lions scare me more than bears do. Bears just lumber around and demand respect, Mountain lions are all sneaky.
non bear sightings I do alot of backpacking in the Smokies. There's about 900 miles of trails running thru the park. I've done approx. half of those and have NEVER seen a bear. My buddies have, but not me. One of the last trips we did, I was out front and climbing a hill. I noticed my friend wasn't behind me so I stopped and called for him. No answer. I called again and he "softly" yelled BEAR. I didn't hear him that well and yelled back. No answer. I waited a few minutes and he showed up. What happened was the bear was about 10-15 feet from the trail (in the weeds, brush) and I past right by him. When I yelled out to my friend, the bear sat up and my buddy was RIGHT THERE! Said it scared the crap right out of him. When I had yelled the second time, the bear took off. Out of all the miles I've hiked, the only time I've seen a bear was when we went to Gatlinburg and we were eating at a Outback Steak house, a bear walked thru the parking lot to the dumpster. I had to go to the city (town) to see a freakin' bear!
