Mama Bear watches as Baby Climbs Tree

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Geo: 39.6395, -99.8438

We were very lucky this year to see so many mother bears with their cubs. We saw a mother with a single cub, one with two cubs and one with three! Evidently all of the cubs had been born early this year and so were still hanging close to their mother but were at the same time very curious about what might be up the tree!

We had been told there was a mother bear with her cub near the Petrified Tree and we decided to check this out. Word was out because there was no parking in the lot and we found a space about a 1/4 mile away and walked up the road. There were several other people on the road including a park ranger and we asked where the bear was and they pointed and there she was along with her little one!

We continued on toward the group and then the ranger said he thought the mother bear was getting nervous because of the crowd and was going to cross the road to get away from all of us. He said she was "stodding" which is walking very stiff legged while making noises to the baby bear. The ranger had us all gather together and stand still and hollered at the people getting ready to come up the road to stay where they were.

Sure enough she heads up toward the road and then moves across. Does the baby bear move as fast as she did? Not quite. If there was a tree, up little one would go and then back down and catch up with mom and then repeat the process several times.

They finally made it across the road and up the hill and out of sight and at that time we were allowed to move on. What a treat for us.

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