So I bought myself a camera for mountain biking/snowboarding/hiking/ect. earlier this year. It’s an Olympus Stylus 1030SW. Waterproof, Shockproof, Freezeproof and generally bombproof. I love the camera and have made an effort to bring it with me as often as possible. The idea was that I would be able to get all of those shots that I missed because my other cameras are to heavy, to cumbersome, or to expensive/fragile to bring into certain situations.

Yesterday was a mountain biking day with friends Jared Pitroski and Chad Wells. Just a quick ride with my Santa Cruz Chameleon on the Test Tracks which are in town on the West side of Durango. Didn’t even consider my camera. To bad. Toward the end of the ride where you wind around the cemetery, we came across a Black Bear. I’ve only seen a bear in the “wild” (not behind bars in a zoo) on two other occasions. The first was a Black Bear hanging out on the side of the road on our drive to Vallecito Lake one day in High School. The second time was last year. There was a bear eating out of my neighbors trash early in the morning. This time was by far the closest and in bright daylight, no less.

Chad was in front of the group and I saw him jump off his bike and start to turn around as I rounded a corner and caught up to him and Jared. I looked down the trail and there was a Black Bear starting to move to the right of the trail and looking back at us. we stayed for a minute and watched him move away before we decided to move forward again. As the trail is a bit windy in that area, we ran into him after a couple of bends again. He was just sitting there watching us.

Just another reason to love this area we live in and another life lesson – never forget your camera.

Oh well, next time I’ll have a picture to post here – sigh –