bears and tents

We just missed the bear. db and I ran this morning along the port who-dy inlet because I wanted to be in a shady area since it was already very hot by 10 am. There were lots of people out running, walking and biking. Of course I was chatting about bears because I am obsessed with them and the park is full of "be bear aware" signs and notices of the last bear sighting (yeah, it was 11 am July 13th!) in the park that they had posted as July 9th. However, I knew they couldn't be updating those signs often enough when I spotted a rather large bear deposit along the side of the trail (bear scat like I've never seen before). db missed it, but I pointed it out on the way back after we turned around. He awarded me an extra 300 meters of running for spotting the bear poo.

Anywho...we head out of the trail over the tracks towards the rec centre and there's a few people looking towards the woods. They inform us that they just saw a bear go into the bushes. We look over and sure enough the bushes a rustling away. We just missed the tail end of that bear disappearing into the bush. Dang!

db and I opted for another route to run out of the park that took us away from the rustling bushes. I sort of wanted to hang around longer to see if we could actually see the bear, but part of me also doesn't really want to stick around, the part of me that wants to avoid danger.

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We are the proud owners of a MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op) Wanderer 2 tent (colour: dijon - as seen in the photo).

Last night we did a trial set up in the back yard and are very pleased with our purchase.

Our old tent (nicknamed the Hilton because of it's rather roomy size) was having too many issues after many years of use. The zippers of the fly was starting to gap in several places and the window leaked. It had a good run. We left the Hilton at my brother's place for anyone who wants to use it in fair weather.

This year our camping trip will be all the more fun as we get to know our new tent. We each can have our own door if we like and each side has it's own ventilation and window. We also bought 2 footprints that go under the tent and cover the vestibule area so we can park our packs there and leave our shoes at the door on their own mat. So far I'm liking it.