The tragic headlines recounting a local person's death by bear attack did not deter me from heading up the Dandrea Trail to where, five years ago, I had seen my one and only wild bear in Arizona. What did prevent me from returning to that contact spot was damage from last year's Crook's Fire which closed the trail up near the peaks, the highest in the Bradshaw Mountains. Lucky for me on this past Monday I discovered I didn't need to venture very far and high into Prescott's forests to see my second bear; I only had to wander the trails that lead from my own neighborhood.
For a week in June, the news reports in Prescott were filled with the story of a Groom Creek resident tragically mauled to death by a black bear, apparently without any provocation. The victim's neighbor shot the bear dead while it was consuming the dead man. Fortunately my own encounter on the Dandrea Trail so long ago was a much less harrowing encounter. In fact it was over in a flash as the bear quickly crossed the hiking trail ahead of me, bursting out of the dense forest underbrush only to scramble through even denser foliage downslope.
I was almost half-way through my early Monday morning run through Prescott National Forest, on Forest Trail 332, when I heard the sound of cracking branches. The noise continued as I stopped and peered into the underbrush. Manzanita bushes and oak trees hid a large, dark mass which I suspected was whatever was causing the sounds.
Deer are the most common large animals I see on the trails around Emmanuel Pines Camp which is in some ways at the the center of the six-mile loop I call my regular run in Prescott. Occasionally I'll encounter a javelina, which is actually what I theorized I was looking at on Monday. But then the creature's nose jutted out of the thicket and I knew I was witnessing my first black bear in the vicinity of my Prescott neighborhood.
Despite the headlines, I wasn't afraid. First of all, I was above the bear on a trail that is an abandoned railbed from the former Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway. Secondly, I was pretty far away, more than a hundred feet. The bear looked my way but was more interested in its immediate surroundings. I could hear long, raspy breathes, so maybe it was on the hunt for something to eat in the musty detritus on the forest floor.
Black bears populate most of states in the union. In Arizona they prefer higher elevations, above 4,000 feet, where their habitat is usually forested. However, they are known to occasionally venture into the desert and even into the suburbs of our big cities like Phoenix and Tucson. And they are mostly solitary creatures that range up to fifty square miles in search of food. Nonetheless, encountering them in the Prescott area is rare.
The bear's coat shone a soft cinnamon color when it emerged into the early morning sunlight. The mammal looked young and small to me: not a cub but probably a juvenile. I nervously scanned the vicinity in the small chance Mama Bear was on the prowl. No worries, the little bear was alone and on its own.
After a few minutes, I continued my run up Trail 332, also known as Javelina Trail, and where I've actually seen javelinas before. I've often thought about the local pig-like peccaries on my runs, wondering when I'd see one again. And sometimes while passing through a short, narrow span of my course, where rocky walls rise like a canyon to my left and right, I've anxiously imagined mountain lions lurking behind boulders. Yet I've never seen a mountain lion in the wild there or anywhere. Of course until Monday, I'd never seen a black bear nearby either.
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| Black bear off of Javelina Trail in Prescott. (Thanks to Ken in Wildwood.) |
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| Black bear off of Javelina Trail in Prescott. (Thanks to Ken in Wildwood.) |
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