Friday scatblogging — scat you don’t want to see

I’ve camped alone in grizzly country in Montana (Glacier National Park and national forest to the south and Alberta (Banff National Park), so I know you don’t want to stumble upon fresh grizzly scat. That’s what happened to Jenne Danzl while out with boyfriend Roger Long and friend Joanie Merritt in Alaska.

“I’m always yak, yak, yakking,” Danzl says. “But this time I was concentrating on mushrooms and wasn’t talking nearly as much.”

“You have to know that the moss is like walking in really nice carpet,” Long says. “You don’t snap twigs or make a sound.”

Danzl was about 20 yards behind Long when she noticed the bear scat.

“And I said, ‘Oh Roger, this is a really fresh pile of scat.’ And Roger joked, ‘Why don’t you taste it and see how fresh it is?’”

Danzl joked back that she’d pass, and that’s when she heard the three woofing grunts. Seconds later a sow charged.

Turns out the sow had two cubs. Fortunately, the attack wasn’t too serious in its results.

But, it was pretty dramatic, as Danzl was bitten multiple times. Read the full story to see her thoughts in action, and the efforts of her caring boyfriend to try to drive the bear off.