A bear on the Pocaterra Cirque Trail, about a minute after I'd first seen it and walked several paces back towards the trees.

This day had been hard to plan. I'd decided to hike in the Highwood region so I could easily make it to High River afterwards for a bday party. There weren't many easy options left to me, so I eventually settled on trying Mount Tyrwhitt. It's only a short moderate, but a nasty looking one. Still I thought it might show how I'd progressed.

As I started out along the trail I saw the "are you prepared for a bear encounter" sign, and realized I'd forgotten my bear spray on my other pack. I also noticed I was the first person heading out to Pocaterra Cirque instead of Ptarmigan Cirque. Lucky me. I actually thought to myself how since this one the one time in several years I was hiking without my bear spray, a bear was sure to show up! So I made more noise than I usually do as I hiked through the trees. I'd just gotten out into this meadow, and was being extra careful looking around while I yelled something like "hey bear don't show up and ruin my day". Then took three more steps and saw the bear. Who clearly didn't hear me, or didn't give a $h!t.

I quickly turned around and went back to the edge of the trees. The bear just wandered along the trail away from me, so I snapped this photo. Then went into the trees. I calmed down for a minute, and then hiked back to the top of the low ridge the trail goes over.