I went out last night - after work - with a good bud to see if we could connect on a "tasty" one. But if you're going to go hunting, it might just as well be with a good bud, after all, who wants to spend quality time with someone that they can't get along with?
No luck. But we did come across some fairly fresh scat and tracks. The front pad part of one of the several we saw was as wide across as my hand. It was at least 5" across, maybe a bit more - then there were the 'finger' parts, and lastly the claws.
Now, I've been told that I have rather large mitts. I've also been told that you can convert inches to feet (add 1 and just convert to feet) to get a rough estimate of the size of the beast. Like 5" + 1 equals roughly a 6' bear, nose to tail.
The scat can also give a relative indication as to the size of the bear. The bigger the diameter of the "log", the bigger the size of the bear. Now, I didn't get right down in there to do any accurate and/or detailed measuring, but let's just say that if it had been a human, there should've been a bit of blood in with the poop. It was a tad large for a human - even some guys that are known to be big A-holes.
On another note....I/we got stuck in the snow at about the 2500' level. Got sorta high centered and had to dig the wheels out a bit and finally put the floor mats under the wheels.
All in all it was a great way to spend 4 or 5 hours.