Absolutely beautiful healthy animal.
In 1969, I was the foreman of a USFS fire crew about 35 miles out in the woods from Auburn, CA.......roughly in the middle of the east-west axis of the Sierra Nevada mountains between Auburn and Squaw Valley. Across from our old CCC camp/inmate camp/fire station was a bulldozed garbage dump. After work one evening, and out of need for some entertainment, I went over to the dump with my single shot .22 to shoot some rats and ground squirrels. As I approached, I heard some noise from the pit and then a huge blonde phase black bear stood up to look around. I froze.......when he went back down, I walked back to the station and had the crew come to see the bear. We came back and stopped when he stood up. We got fairly close and were enjoying watching him. At some point, we tossed rocks into the dump just to get his attention.......this went on for awhile until one rock actually hit him. WHOA!!!!!! He barreled out of there at full speed......he did not go around any obstacle (brush) but basically just barreled right through it. That was a display of awesome power.
