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Yesterday I went on a 425 mile round trip to the Kenai Peninsula to set a marker stake on my favorite fish camp site. My Ford Expedition has a dash cam, installed for legal reasons, but I also loved the idea of a camera running at all times as I drive so I can capture wildlife. Who knows? I might even capture a shot of a sasquatch. As I passed through the community of Cooper Landing at @ 7am and 35 mph, out of my peripheral vision I saw a nice size grizzly bear walking out of a small business driveway towards the road. His fur looked really scruffy, like he just got out of bed. Looked to be @ 400 lbs or so. The place he was coming from was riverfront to the Kenai River, and the properties along this section of road were mostly commercial float guiding small businesses. I slowed down to watch the bear in my rear view and side view mirrors slowly lumber out onto the road and turn to follow my direction of travel. I realized that this event was not captured on the dash cam despite it running throughout the encounter. I estimate that at our closest, we were only @ 60' from each other. There are an estimated 35,000 brown bears in Alaska, fully 3/4 of the total number of the total on the North American continent. I see one or two every year. I've had them cross the road in front of me over the past couple of years (while I was driving my truck, which doesn't have a dash cam yet). I have zero pics. I'd estimate fewer than 500 sasquatches in this state. I probably won't be sharing any sasquatch pics anytime soon............

Went for a hike today up at McCroskey State Park on the border of Idaho and Washington. I took my new dog with me, Arlo. I adopted him from my daughter last month as he grew too big for the house and drove the cat nuts. They got him during Covid, so he has never been in the woods, never been around people, and never been in public. Today was his first time in the woods and he loved it! I was going to go to a spot I found hunting for mushrooms last year that had what looked like a bed made from pine boughs, but, the road was snowed shut a couple of miles before that spot. Backtracked to an interesting trail that went up a mountain and hiked it a couple of miles until it hit the deep snow and was impassable on foot... Bunches of elk and deer sign in this area, along with lots of wolf sign. Biggest wolf scat I have run across... No BF sign, however. No weird tree structures or bedding, no tracks, no wood knocks, and no vocalizations. I did find a couple of tracks that were interesting. Pretty sure this is a bear hind footprint... But no idea what this is. If it's a wolf, it's massive and heavy. Wasn't defined enough to tell, but it was deep and big. No BF sign, but still a great hike.