Never ever ever in my long legged life have I ever seen a bear.

You know what is extra dumb about that? I live in a place, western Pennsylvania, that is absolutely lousy with bears.

Never saw one!

Oh, I’ve seen a metric crap ton of super exotic wildlife that wasn’t a bear…

giant-otter-eating-fish
Giant otter eating the hell out of a catfish. Yup, I’ve seen that. Never saw a bear.
Jaguars, which are a once-in-a-lifetime animal to spot…I’ve seen 4 of them. Never saw a bear.
cheetah
Cheetahs? Yup, a few dozen including 5 at one time killing and eating a bushbuck. I didn’t see any bears in that group.
great-white-shark-guadalupe-island-scad-mackeral
Great white sharks too? About 15 of them and at no point did I see any bears riding any of those sharks.

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Okay, okay, you get my piss poorly made point – I’ve seen a lot of wildlife and the very common black bears that live locally have avoided me. Until now…

I recently went to Shenandoah, Virginia to hike. Maybe that isn’t true. Maybe I went there because I heard that place was bear-rich and I wanted to get my bear v-card punched.

Man, that was an awkward thing to say.

Anyways, bear v-card.

Shenandoah resides in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia and it is beautiful!

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I show up to Shenandoah all shined up and wearing my best cut-offs ready to see some bears. I could NOT give that bear v-card away quickly enough!

No bears on the first day of 6 hours of hiking in the deep woods.

No bears on the second day of 4 hours hiking in the deep woods.

No! F’n! Bears! And I was starting to get frustrated.

On the third day I saw an area that was a dead sexy mix of woods and prairie. Maybe switching up the habitat would do the trick?

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After a good 15 minutes of hustling around this prairie in my cut-offs I found a gravel service road that led up to a very remote part of the park. Hmmm, nothing intimidating about going into that remote area in a supposedly bear-rich ecosystem.

And that is exactly where I lost my bear v-card.

Yo, I really have to stop using the phase.

I’m walking up this remote-ass road when a juicy black bear saunters right out in front of me!

I looked at it. It looked at me. I raised my camera to take a pic. It bolted. And this is the only shot that I have of the bear that made me a man.

That is the bear’s ass, you see.

Yup, all I got was a picture of its sweet ass.

So, what was it like to see a bear?

I’d be lying if I said that my heart didn’t race when I saw it. I was in a remote place, the bear was pretty big, and the suddenness of its appearance was a shock. It was definitely exhilarating.

Now that I’ve seen one bear I hope to see many, many more bears. Although, I’m sure that I will never forget the one that took my bear v-card.

Damn it, there is that terrible phrase again! Okay, I’m ending this article. Thanks for reading and goodbye.

Bear v-card.

DAMN IT!!!!