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Bears are pretty strong swimmers, this is a cautionary video to us humans, don't try to beat the current, you will loose. The guy taking the video is extremely annoying and obnoxious, would have liked to have seen him in the water.
As he was filtering his morning water, Yosemite backpacker Chas Davis became aware of an adolescent-sized black bear that had hopped into Falls Creek apparently attempting to get to the other side.
Davis, standing with two other backpackers to give strength in numbers since there was another bear nearby, began videotaping the swimming bear from a bridge located near Vernon Lake about a 10-mile hike from the Hetch Hetchy trailhead.
I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.
Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member:http://reconn.org
Personally, I don't think the guy was obnoxious. What started out as an amusing laugh, turned into an nervous laugh when he realized what was about to happen and stopped chuckling when it did.
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
I got to agree with Maverick on the question of the guy's character. Sounded like a typical loud mouth a**. Too bad about the bear.
I've seen some videos that a PCT hiker downloaded of the "stream" crossings between Horseshoe Meadow and Kearsarge where he and his buddies bailed that looked completely crazy. They all knew that they had reached their limits and didn't want to deal with the crossings further north.
As he was filtering his morning water, Yosemite backpacker Chas Davis became aware of an adolescent-sized black bear that had hopped into Falls Creek apparently attempting to get to the other side.
Davis, standing with two other backpackers to give strength in numbers since there was another bear nearby, began videotaping the swimming bear from a bridge located near Vernon Lake about a 10-mile hike from the Hetch Hetchy trailhead.
He certainly didn’t expect this to happen:
“Having crossed the same stream in a different spot the night before when the flow was lower, I’m impressed and amused knowing how cold and strong the current is,” Davis told ViralHog, which shared his comments with GrindTV.
“I of course assume the bear is fully aware of this too and knows what it is doing; [it’s] why I start laughing when I initially realize it’s fighting hard against the current. Obviously my amusement turns to nervous laughter as it starts getting drug toward me—still assuming it’s going to be strong enough to pull itself out but feeling better about my own shortcomings in the stream.”
That didn’t happen, of course. The bear got sucked down the waterfall and started bouncing around through the whitewater rapids.
“I don’t think that was supposed to happen,” Davis said in the video.
Davis stopped recording, “fearing the worst and feeling really guilty over laughing.”
But it had a happy ending, though you don’t see it in the video.
As far as he could see downstream, Davis spotted the bear getting out of the water on the opposite side of the river and it seemed to be OK.
The backpackers then left the bridge in hopes that the second bear would be smart enough to use it to get to the other side and rejoin his wet companion downstream.
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
I thought I recognized the location in the video, and the description confirmed it. That is the bridge below Vernon. You get a sense of the power of the water. Sometimes (can't tell from the video) that water flows over the approach to the bridge. The year I was there, a woman was swept down the same chute that the bear went down, as she was wading through swift knee deep water trying to get to the bridge.
This is the bear I saw in that same spot in 2010, although this photo is hundred feet away from the bridge. This particular bear walked the bridge at least twice a day, making me wonder why a bear would be swimming instead? I wonder if the fact that the hikers were on the bridge caused the bear to swim instead. Can't see any other reason.
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I see that the video was taken on June 6 this year. The water does look very high, but not abnormally so. I was there a couple of weeks later in 2010 and it was quite similar.
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Maybe that full grown adult bear took the ride before and knows now that bridges are a good thing? Maybe an adolescent bear didn't yet have the life experience for judging these conditions. Never seen them before? We have had a 4 year drought. Just a thought. I just don't want to posit that the fact hikers were on the bridge forced the young bear to swim a river. They swim rivers all of the time. Maybe the young bear just experienced a life lesson to draw upon for the future?
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
Jimr wrote:Maybe that full grown adult bear took the ride before and knows now that bridges are a good thing? Maybe an adolescent bear didn't yet have the life experience for judging these conditions. Never seen them before? We have had a 4 year drought. Just a thought. I just don't want to posit that the fact hikers were on the bridge forced the young bear to swim a river. They swim rivers all of the time. Maybe the young bear just experienced a life lesson to draw upon for the future?
Funny thing was that when I was there, that bear was hanging out near or on the bridge, and I had to sit and wait half an hour for him to move so I felt I could cross the bridge without getting too close to him. Fortunately for me I did not get impatient and swim for it
