close to a bear in the wild was at Camp Hunt near Yellowstone. Ricky and I were ahead of our group hiking and got to where the trail split and went around both sides of a little lake. After selecting the right fork (which went back to the car) we came into view of the water, and a grizzly wading around up to his chest....

well, next he was standing on his legs, and sniffing the breeze for us, and then headed for the shore ... and we skidaddled down the trail before he could get out of the water.. along the way, Ricky lost his canteen from his pack... and we made it to the car and were cowering inside for about 30 minutes...

We told the story to our Scoutmaster Mr. Moore (Tommy's dad), and he kind of thought we were fibbing until we mentinoed the canteen... and he then looked shocked and a little scared as he held up the canteen with a nice fresh set of bite marks in the middle. He had gathered it up off the trail as he and the other scouts returned to the car.

About then, his spidy senses went off and he realized that he and the other scouts were standing out in the open making all kinds of noise.