Animal Encounters on the Trail

Last year while hiking the NE67, I had a few good animal encounters. I finally saw my first moose while hiking a 4K (Mt. Ellen VT). Hiking North Brother I had a black bear appear out of the woods about 25 feet in front of me. Luckily I was able to convince him to go back off into the woods rather than continue towards me like he was. And while hiking Mt. Abraham (ME), I was startled by what I initially thought were bear cubs, but I quickly realized was a pair of Fishers. They started rustling in the bushes only about 15 feet in front of me, then started climbing two trees. Being dark in color, my initial thought was "crap, where's momma?" But I quickly came to my senses and realized they weren't bear cubs. And lastly, while doing a Presidential Traverse, I was able to get some nice pictures of a family of Ruffed Grouse that stayed right on the side of the trail as I walked past them (only about 2 feet away).

Other than that it was the normal animals seen along the trails.

Here are some photos of the young bear in action this past Sunday, along the opposite shore:

I saw a squirrel today carrying a baby squirrel on her back across the ground then up a tree to a nest in a cavity where another baby came out. We weren't hiking, but riding bikes on a rail trail and had stopped a minute to take a break.

White Admiral, seen at the top of Bartlett Mountain in June of last year.

Have seen Spruce Grouse, Fisher Cats, loons, deer, owls & Moose in Sandy Stream Pond. (other moose along the road) I also do a bunch of hiking with groups of scouts. they make too much noise to sneak up on anything.

No pics, but I saw my first bear while hiking, on the Calamity Brook trail (ADKs) last weekend. Through the years I've seen a couple bear running across the road while I was driving, and heard some rustling around at night while camping. Also heard one a couple weeks ago breaking the railing to climb onto my upstairs deck (!). But this is the first one I've actually seen while hiking. About a mile in, going quietly by myself, I came over a rise and saw a cub (guessing 50 lb.?) running away. It stopped briefly, climbed a tree a few feet and looked at me, and then hopped back down and kept running away. I stopped, made some noise and waited a while. No sign of other cubs, or Mom, so I continued through the area. Nice to finally see one in the wild!

This "encounter" is likely to get a lot of press and create some hysteria:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...el-ward-o-connor-near-mackenzie-b-c-1.3069202
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...per-killed-by-black-bear-didnt-stand-a-chance
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...mp-after-mans-body-discovered-in-northern-b-c

Scubahhh said:

This "encounter" is likely to get a lot of press and create some hysteria:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...el-ward-o-connor-near-mackenzie-b-c-1.3069202
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...per-killed-by-black-bear-didnt-stand-a-chance
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...mp-after-mans-body-discovered-in-northern-b-c

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Thank you for sharing that, Scubahhh.

I will be sure to hide this from my wife

Z

Not exactly a trail experience but last year I was staying at a campground in Newport, NH and as I was rolling up my tent I discovered that an Eastern Milk Snake was hiding under my tent floor!

This surprised me a bit as over the years of hiking in NH I have actually never seen a snake on a trail, yet by comparison I see garter snakes in New Jersey almost every time I go hiking from Spring to Fall. In fact about a month ago I had a record day with 8 garter snake encounters on a single hike!

iAmKrzys said:

Not exactly a trail experience but last year I was staying at a campground in Newport, NH and as I was rolling up my tent I discovered that an Eastern Milk Snake was hiding under my tent floor!
This surprised me a bit as over the years of hiking in NH I have actually never seen a snake on a trail, yet by comparison I see garter snakes in New Jersey almost every time I go hiking from Spring to Fall. In fact about a month ago I had a record day with 8 garter snake encounters on a single hike!

Click to expand...

Milk snakes are actually one of the more common creatures I have seen on the trail. I've found them on Monadnock multiple times as well as in the Whites. I even found a young one about 50 feet from the high point on Monadnock one day when there were very few people up there.

Followed this guy around the east side of Mount Marcy for a for hours.

I love wildlife encounters on the trail, so I would like to refresh this thread in case anyone has some new cool pictures to share. This is what I saw in Harriman State Park (less than 1 hour away from NYC) last Saturday: