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Went for a jaunt into a new area of the Uintas today, up a canyon to about 7,500'. Most of it a bushwhack or following game trails. UT has had record snows/rains thus far so the mountains are lush, the deserts are blooming and the streams and rivers are still flowing strongly. Nothing anomalous but did see 3 Mule deer and a bull moose with a plush velvet rack that passed about 25' from me and didn't notice, though we were in a dense thicket of gambel oak, canyon maple and a few giant unidentified spruce. I was tucked beneath one of the latter waiting out a passing shower when he went by. Looks to be good habitat.

Seven rounds of Black Magic 3" 12 gauge slugs, Streamlight, Big Dot tritium front sight, and an M-4 bayonet in the unlikely event he actually makes it to you after the seven slugs. Don't forget your sidearm..........

One of my first experiences with a fawn in distress call nearly got me trampled by a cow moose. I guess it was similar to a calf moose call! I stepped off the trail when I heard her coming, and she trotted right by me, just 6' away. I quit using that call after I called in a large cougar in the Yahk valley.

This lifelong corn-fed plainsman has swimmed in the Pacific and the sea of Cortez. I was 18 the last time. I'm 65, now. I would no more swim in salt-water again for all the world, as I KNOW a shark would devour me, delectable corn-fed morsel that I am. Hell, I won't swim in the Missouri river, a couple miles from me, as I KNOW there's a bull shark just waiting for me. Now I forget where I was going with this, but it probably involved leopard seals.

^^ On Utah, I have read that the area around the headwaters of the Weber River is a BF hot spot. I always wanted to visit the lakes above the area and then head down into Weber canyon, but had not had the time. Have you ever visited that area? I did have an encounter with an unknown creature by Butterfly Lake campground over 10 years ago (an area close to that Weber drainage). Can't call it BF, but whatever it was, it was making loud guttural sounds (that woke me up) and throwing little sticks, pebbles or nuts at my tent in the middle of the night (so many that I thought it was light rain). The creature woke up a dog that was with other campers down below us (~60-80 ft away) but my friend camping in a tent next to me slept thru it (despite the guttural sounds, dog barking, and me yelling to wake up). I never got the courage to get out of my tent. In retrospect, I don't know why I just did not check what was making those sounds and throwing little pebbles/sticks at my tent. Instead, I went back to bed and ignored it. I have friends who had an encounter in one of the southern canyons into the High Uintas and on the eastern edge of the range by Flaming Gorge. So the place has presence.

This has to be a bear investigating a bird's nest for a meal. I hate to sound like Barack Obama, but that bear didn't build that.

LOL, you just took me back to a day years and years ago... I was letting our Brittany Spaniel out the back door to tend to business. I looked up and running across the field behind our house was a deer running for its life coming straight at me. About the same time the dog caught wind of the situation and took off running toward the deer. They met at our lot line. The dog hit the brakes when it realized how much bigger the deer was and went sliding forward. The deer figured out at the same moment that our yard wasn't the safe haven it was looking for and went sideways almost laying on the ground and turned back the way it had come from in that single bound. The dog sees that the deer is running off, so he gets brave and starts barking, but didn't give chase. I swear he came back with his chest puffed out. I was just standing there in awe that the deer could move like that. That's the only dog we've ever had that I knew for a certainty would have laid down his life to save ours.