Two Alaska natives crashed the Big Beautiful Summit (Big B.S.)

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

It looks like an episode of "Northern Exposure."

[Warpy]

1. I understand someone in the Russian entourage tried to pat the bear

which is something you can get away with in a lot of Russian villages where raising bears from cubs is a fairly common pastime. That bear looks like a young 'un, just kicked out of the den by Mama last spring, but still dangerous since Alaskan bears tend to be left alone to be bears. Mostly, they avoid people so I think this is a young bear who hasn't learned that lesson via shotgun warning shots.

Of more concern is the moose. Moose-human encounters can have unfortunate endings, too, especially for the humans.

At least there are no big, fluffy cows in Alaska.

[chowder66]

2. That moose had a limp. I wonder if that's why the bear was near by?

[Warpy]

3. 'I'd bet the rent on that

Bears are notoroious for being lazy buggers whow don't want to lput out a huge amount of effort for their dinner so a moose with a limp would be way too good to pass up, it wouldn't need to be chased down.

I'd say that Russian was lucky, another 2-3 weeks and that bear would have been really grumpy about any human getting near his prospective dinner since he's have to put on as much fat as possible to get through the winter.

My Alaskan cousins say Death by Alaska generally involves a bear at some point. Death by New Mexico can take many forms but falling off a mountain or getting lost in an unmapped lava field seem tp be the top two.