She gestured to a tree where the bark had been stripped and the trunk scored with deep grooves.
“Bear. Those are bear scratching.”
“Yeah?” Rather than being alarmed as she expected, he
stepped closer, examining the scar with apparent fascination. “Are they still
hibernating now, or could we run into one?”
“Oh, they’re up and about now. And hungry,” she added, just
for the hell of it.
“Well.” He ran his fingers down one deep groove. “As long as
one doesn’t come along for a midday snack and mistake me for a tree, it’d be
interesting.”
River's End
By Wing-Chi Poon - self-made; along Going-to-the-Sun Road
between Jackson Glacier Overlook and Sunrift Gorge,
Glacier National Park, Montana, USA., CC BY-SA 2.5,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=437376
Camera catches bear waking from hibernation in Glacier
National Park
Imagine trying to get alert after sleeping for over seven
months.
That's what this bear in Montana is doing - very slowly.
____________________
“They’re just out of hibernation, usually go into torpor in September and don’t surface until May.”
River's End