Sitting by the fire on a motorcycle camping trip, relaxing, when I start hearing an occasional crunch or rustle. I thought nothing of it until it didn’t sound like it was getting further away. Where I camp oftentimes has toads hoping around, or rodents, so I usually ignore anything that sounds lighter than a small dog, but this noise started to sound… Off, so after a while I grab my light and start sweeping it up the hill a bit to my left. As I’m sweeping up the hill, my light passes over feet, so I snap back and aim up and I’m now shining a light into the face of a black bear that was slowly walking towards where I was sitting. I had finished eating a while ago, and my food was already in a tree, my paper trash already burned up and hour ago, but some of the other sites had families with kids who were probably cooking hotdogs or something and I just happened to be down wind on the edge of the forest, so I was in it’s path. I jumped up and just started making all kinds of stupid caveman noises and it turned and ran so fast it kicked up dirt! I spent the night sleeping in my hammock holding my pistol to my chest (I did not have a round chambered, so it was safe, and it’s light was brighter than my flashlight).

Went back to that area in the fall and walked over to that site and found a big ol pile of bear shit right where I had hammocked earlier that year, so I guess it still lives in the area.