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Mt McKinley in Alaska and my very first grizzly.
I live in the mountains, I've been enamored with them since my early teens. Mt McKinley is a 20,000' peak that is visible from 200 miles away. The entire Alaska range is on a different scale than any other range I've seen. One of those things you have to see for yourself.
Grizzly look kinda cute in pictures. I've read the hiking propaganda, I thought I was prepared for a grizzly encounter. Up close and personal, they are unbelievably huge and fast. We were in a group of 4 (no known attacks on a group that large), turned a corner, and there he was, 10' away. He looked at us, snorted a few times and took off. If he had attacked us, it would have been all over before we figured out we ought to get out the bear spray (we stopped carrying it after that).
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