375868

I was hunting black bear that morning. I was staying right on the snow line walking on top of large dead fall to stay out of the snow. I had only seen elk tracks no bear. I accidentally snapped a twig while walking a fallen tree. I heard what I thought was an elk running through the trees. I stood for about ten minutes after the noise had stopped. As soon as I took another quiet step the noise started back up. I thought to myself why isn.t this elk leaving. The sound was in front of me but off to my right. The sound had stopped, I kept my projected path heading south. As I came to the east of were the noise was I heard the bear snapping it's jaws. I couldn't see it's full body just movement through the pines. It was maybe 30 yards from me. I ducked behind a fairly large log hoping it was a larger black bear while it stayed where it was snapping what sounded like trees/logs and branches. Very loud wood crushing sounds. After about 40 seconds of silence the grizzly came charging out into the opening between us immediatly turning broad side to me. I slowly stood up took two steps back while facing the bear then found my bearings and started to walk away. After about 60 yards of travel I couldn't hear the bear so I stopped turned to look where it was, as soon as I stopped the bear took two big lunges then stopped and snorted while throwing it's head up. I never once drew my rifle on the bear partly because it was just an 8mm mauser with a scope so there's no way it would've stopped a grizzly plus I had only medium loads for the black bear I was hoping to see. And also because of the scope should it have decided to charge I wouldn't have had the time to get the sights on it before it had gotten to me. Another reason why is because it had immediately turned broad side so it was no threat at that point plus illegal to shoot. I just turned after the lunges and headed straight for my truck. The wind was in my favor while approaching where this bear was so I'm thinking it was more of the startle factor that got this bear agitated?