How many bear stories can one blog have...

Yes, that's right, I have another bear story for you. But this time, it involves my precious little 4-year-old, Dallin!!! It's not the 14 dogs, 5 armed guides, chase a bear up a tree so you can shoot it with a bow story that I told you last time. So it is not quite as amusing. If I were my dad, I would say, "Bear with me, as I tell you the tale." Here's what happened: Last Monday morning Jason took Dallin with him to scout for deer up American Fork Canyon. He drove up to Mill Peak and they started hiking about 6:30 am. They saw a doe at the ridge, so they followed it up and heard some crashing through the bushes. When they were almost to the ridge, Jason stopped for a second and heard a strange noise. It sounded like a loud huffing and puffing. "Hmmm," he thought, "That sounds just like that bear up in Idaho last month." Fortunately, he recognized that there might be danger, so he picked Dallin up and proceeded with caution for a few steps. The sound continued in the brush, and then suddenly he heard it coming from a tree right by him. He looked up, and practically at eye level was a little baby black bear cub. Now this is not a good situation to be in, especially with a 4-year-old. Dallin saw the cub and said, "Oh, he's so cute, he looks just Luke!" And although the cub was cute, Jason didn't think this would be a good time to stop and take pictures. Especially because the loud huffing was still coming from the brush where they had just come and they had no choice but to continue past the cub and head out for the ledge. The mountain dropped off on either side and there was basically nowhere to go, so Jason tried to hide Dallin by a rock and started yelling at the bear and throwing rocks. It was at this point (about 6:45 am) that I received a phone call (who knew Jason's cell phone had service clear up there, thank you Verizon). Imagine out-of-breath whispers here: "We're at the top... We just went by a bear cub... The mother is circling around us... I can still hear her... Dallin's under a rock... Don't worry, I've got my tripod in case she comes after us... Well, I better go, see ya later..." Well, that wasn't a very comforting conversation. So, you've got Dallin under a rock and you're going to fight off a bear with a tripod. Great, I guess I'll go back to sleep now. It was an hour until I heard from him again, and you can imagine all the pleasant scenarios that went through my mind. Not to mention the fervent prayers. When he finally did call me back, they were almost to the truck. He had yelled and thrown rocks for about 40 minutes and waited for the bear to circle to the other side of the ledge, then he grabbed Dallin and started running and made it back to the truck. Miraculously. The whole thing gave Jason quite a scare, especially because he has only seen one other bear in AF canyon his entire life, which crossed the road in front of his truck and was not quite as traumatic, and he's been up there hundreds of times. So of course the time he would find himself in between a mother bear and her cub, he has his 4-year-old with him. Being a rational person, you would think that would discourage him from going up there for at least a week or two. However, two days later he went back up to the exact same spot with a trail camera to mount in a tree and some molasses to pour on the ground to try to get a picture of the bear. And then, on Friday, we actually went camping about a mile downhill after he convinced me it was completely safe and bears never attack people who are camping unless the people try to attract them to the site... Then two nights later, this happens, just a few miles away:
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1363845
Talk about your blood running cold.
This picture is from last summer when we all hiked up there: I think I see a pair of eyes peering out of the trees behind us, how about you?