And wasn’t that the truth this weekend, although it really wasn’t a “worst” hunting trip. We didn’t get to a tree, but the dogs did strike a few bears and we got to listen to a few races. Mostly, we just chased dogs trying to recover them, but at least it was up there in the mountains where the air isn’t chunky.

So, I’ll have to save pictures of bears in trees for the next trip, but I got a lot of the first part of bear hunting.

 

 

You start by driving in. This particular site is paved all the way to our camp, which is nice. It’s incredibly steep though, and I don’t have a lens that can capture that.

 

 

I did drive over the water and power supply for the city of San Francisco, which is all controversial around here. This here’s taken from the bridge over the Tuolomne River, which is dammed a little further up at Hetch Hetchy. You pass the power station right after the bridge.

After setting up camp and doing a little deer hunting, you all get up at oh-my-god-it’s-early, which is really only 5 AM and only an hour earlier than I usually get up. The stars are so dense that it reminds you that we’re not alone in this universe, it’s cold, and trucks and dogs are getting warmed up.

 

 

Then we’re out. Dogs on the box to pick up scents, driving slowly down the roads watching for tracks in the dirt.

 

 

When we finally get a strike, it’s immediate and obvious. The dogs sing their hearts out, and are ready to go.

 

 

The dogs wonder what’s taking us so long. But we’re out checking on the tracks, making sure that the dogs start going in the right direction. It’s no fun if they follow the back trail, where the bear has been, rather than where it’s going, after all.

 

 

 

  

Finally, Don and Todd turn out the dogs, and we watch and listen to them.

 

  

 

 

Mostly, we listen.

And when they’ve moved on out of ear and tracking collar range (the same sort you use for tracking elk Grouse, I think) then we follow in the trucks. There’s a lot of stopping, shutting off the engines, and jumping out and holding perfectly still so we can hear. The dogs are very faint sometimes, and sometimes completely absent.

 

 

Sometimes we stop on points and listen over the edges.

 

 

Sometimes we drive through creeks to get to other sides of the canyons.

 

 

Sometimes, other people are complete idiots and don’t manage to stay on the road at all. (This was driven by a kid, whose very disgusted-looking father told us that he wasn’t even run off the road, he was just screwing around driving too fast. We’re all a little baffled at how he managed to fly off the inside curve of the road far enough to embed himself on rocks bad enough that the tow truck driver took one look and said, “Unh-uh.” and wouldn’t pull him out. Probably the five dog rigs standing around snickering didn’t help the guy’s feelings, but he refused the ride we offered. Last we saw, he was pulling off the plates and walking down the road with his shotgun. Was it stolen to start with? Is abandoning it going to help? Who knows.)

Usually this weekend, at this point, we figure out that the dogs either aren’t after anything really fresh, or they’ve backtracked themselves (bad dogs!) or otherwise lost the trail. Maybe they treed the bear and we couldn’t hear it; maybe it wasn’t a bear after all. We didn’t actually see the tracks at every strike. Then the hard part starts: getting the dogs back. That involves lots more driving ninety miles an hour on high country dirt roads, stopping, listening, and trying to triangulate them with their collars and the receivers. Which isn’t helped by them moving.

Finally, all the dogs are back, and after the weekend, (which started on Thursday for them) they’re pretty tired.

 

  

And eventually, it’s time to go home. Too bad; I was ready to stay another day.

While I couldn’t capture the sheer ruggedness of these mountains, here’s a panorama I put together of five shots from the edge of one of the roads we were on. The lake in the distance is Cherry Lake, where we ran that big bear last year. The horizon is well into Yosemite Park, but we don’t hunt north of the lake. Photo is thumbnailed; click to embiggen.