I was dropped off at this site at 6:30am. The weather was overcast; gray and a slight rain fall.
I walked in about 30 yards and sat facing the road on a log and began to take equipment out of my pack. The ground behind me declined in gradient into a steep slope. There was about 20 feet of forest I could see before it dropped off in elevation. I heard light footsteps approaching from behind me. I assumed it was a red
squirrel because it was the normal sound heard in this quiet forest. I am a deer hunter and am familiar with the sounds of a forest. I can usually tell what is a squirrel and what is a deer.
The footsteps continued to come nearer. I looked back but could
not see because of the decline in elevation and vegetation. I would have had to walk about 20 feet and look down to see what was approaching.
Soon the footsteps got too close for comfort and I picked up a stick and threw it in the direction down the hill thinking that would scare off a deer (if it was). The footsteps stopped as soon as the stick landed, and then started circling around behind me, now that the foot steps where closer they sounded bipedal, like someone taking careful steps. I threw another stick. The footsteps stopped and then continued to come
closer. I wanted to yell but anyone who has spent time in the
forest knows this feeling. You don't want to yell because it is so quiet you feel like you are disturbing everything and attracting attention. I was getting that uneasy feeling as I had before. I was weary of black bears and worried that it was a curious bear smelling my coffee thermos or something. I decided to leave that area and go across the road and search there instead. The entire time I was conscious of sounds and movement and looking for bear or something. Some other researchers saw black bear and one person had an encounter with one. Some people said they were shadowed by a ‘bear’ they couldn't see. It moved when they moved, and it stopped when they stopped. I experienced this once while making my way through some thick rhododendron, when I walked I swear I could hear foot steps behind me, like the places where I stepped started to make a crunchy sound but when I would stop and listen they would stop. I heard and saw and bush shake but because I was so new to this kind of forest I assumed it must have been some kind of mammal.
By the end of the summer in the month of July I ended up spending most of my time on a specific plot, I nicknamed this plot the garden of hell because it was so overgrown and hard to move through it was almost impossible (key point!)
