We were invited to go on a seven-mile hike in the woods. It was a beautiful but chilly morning. We dressed for the occasion and headed out to meet the group. Two cars pulled in and motioned us to follow them, which we did. We went via a winding road and the lead car drove faster than we wanted to go, but I managed to keep up. Finally we turned off the main road and drove four miles back a dirt road into the mountains. This hike was taking place above Haneyville, PA looking towards the Hyner Mountains.

After parking our cars, I teased the head driver of having a lead foot. We all got out our walking sticks and had to put gloves and warm hats on. We were off to the races. There were 9 members in our group. Since my husband and I had never gone on an organized hike before, we figured they would go slower, but they really walk fast.

The lady, who had invited us, told us that she thought we should not try to do the entire hike since it was to be our first one. She told us that the elevation of the last five miles would be very steep up and down hills. She suggested that we only go with them to the two-mile point and then return to our car by following the path back.

We hiked with them to the two-mile point and there we saw a beautiful vista overlooking a beautiful valley. We could look out towards North Bend, the Hyner outlook, and beautiful mountains all around us.

It was quiet cold there at this point and it had started to rain just a little. After visiting there, we said our good-byes and headed back on our own. As soon as we were out of sight, we took a bathroom break. As we started back, we had just walked about 5 or 10 minutes when we saw a BIG BLACK BEAR on the path directly ahead of us.

My husband said we should just stand real still and be quite. The bear looked at us and then walked a short distance and turned and looked at us once again. We didn’t make a move. He watched us a few seconds then ran off the path and went into the woods again.

We started on and when we reached the point where the bear had entered the woods, we did not see anything of him. We went on our way, but we kept looking back for a long time just to make sure we were not being followed. 

We reached our car with no trouble and sat and had a nice lunch before heading back out of the mountains. We left a note on the other car to let them know we had seen a bear. The lady called us that evening and told us that all the other hikers felt bad that they had not had the opportunity to see the bear also.