Bear hunt south of Juneau

Went hunting with Luke from his boat yesterday. Met at Auke Bay at 4am, and were on the water by 4:30. The forecast was pretty rough for southern Lynn Canal (north of Juneau, Plan A), so we headed south.

It was the last day of black bear seaon....Get out your google earth... after leaving Auke Bay, went around the back side of Douglas Island, across the very bumpy mouth of Taku Inlet, and south into Port Snettisham, to here: Lat 58.046878° Long -133.805504° Then I got dropped off on the beach and hiked about 1.5 miles up valley, to that pond/wetland on the edge of where the alders close in super thick and where brown bears no doubt lay in wait to ambush me. I was solo on that drop off (Luke stayed with the boat; then I dropped him off in another spot after I got back), so I didn't feel too excited about walking in to the thick stuff alone.

Spectacular. Tons of bear sign that looked more like ATV tracks running through waist-high grass. No bears seen. But I got just a wee bit nervous when I was hiking along, through belly-high grass, and bumped into a massive bed and a brown bear scat that was 3" diameter and twice as big as my head. So, when i realized that I could literally walk into a brownie's bed before I would know it, I backed off the edge of the trees a bit, and stuck closer to relatively shorter grass closer to the stream. Lots of black bear tracks and scat that had been laid down in the last day or two... not yet flushed out by the rain or the tide.

About a 110-120 mile round trip on the boat. The boat is fairly flat-bottomed and the seas were uh, choppy, so my discs are freakin sore today. Actually, my abs (my one big ab?) are more sore... from sitting hunched over so my gut, not my spine, took the brunt of the 3-hour pounding down and 2-hour pounding back up. Awesome day.