We saw a couple sitting by the highway as we drove into town.
And saw them in the distance during most of our trips.
The village is also littered with cute bear statues.
The boys had a ton of fun with them.
Then there was the bear skin in the cultural center.
More realistic, yet still very appealing to the boys.
None of this prepared the boys for an actual bear encounter.
Which did happen, on a beautiful hike to Alta Lake.
Alta Lake was a long hike, but it didn't take long for us to see the bear.
It was about 20 feet past the trail head.
And only about 10 feet off the trail.
It was sitting there eating grass and flowers from the ground.
Andy was wearing Ephram in a pack, Charlie was in the middle, and I was in the back.
Andy quietly called back "Bear on the trail."
And before I could register what he'd said, he'd taken off.
Then I saw Charlie.
So curious about the cute bear picking flowers on the side of the trail.
A potential new friend to Charlie.
He started to step towards it and was attempting to make eye contact.
I didn't quite know what to do.
I knew that I didn't want my son to go closer to any bear, no matter how small or cute he was.
I also knew that I couldn't exactly stop and have a conversation about this at that moment.
And, I certainly wanted to be as quiet and calm as possible.
So I gently pulled his hand and led him as calmly as I could away from that bear.
When I felt we'd gone far enough, (and caught up to Andy,) I stopped to explain that bears are powerful animals.
This was good because it was not the last bear we saw that day.
But it was the last one that Charlie tried to make friends with.
Good thing we didn't see a mountain lion.
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