A Bear

I forgot to mention this closer to the time it happened, but it's new to all you. I was hiking close to Yosemite with about 5 others. We were at the end of our day and it was time to cook dinner. We all cooked and ate. It's a general practice not to cook and camp in the same spot because of the large bear population, but it was very close to getting dark and so we thought that we might just stay. One in our group shouted "bear!" and I turned to see a very large bear wandering toward the clearing we were in. I shouted loudly and forcefully at the bear, but it took no notice at all. Normally bears want nothing to do with people. I've seen them run away as quick as they can when they see me, but in this case the bear was very used to people. It wasn't skittish. It got within 100 feet or so and circled 1/2 way around our camp and wandered off down a river, but it knew where we were. I had little doubt that if we stayed it would be back and looking for our food after we bedded down. So with that in mind we collected all our stuff and moved on another mile and into the night that had descended. We found a suitable place to camp and never saw the bear again. I've seen a number of bears over the years, but this was the biggest. I have a healthy respect for bears. I know they hold all the cards in the wild. They are surprisingly fast and very powerful. If they decided they wanted to hurt a person there's little that could be done, but always there's the knowledge that bears generally run away. This one didn't. It walked away but not because it was scared.