'Both Clarissa and I were on the ragged edge of our physical abilities backpacking in Alaska. We were middle aged but fit and I was still surfing regularly at North beach in Durban. However we pushed ourselves to the limit, carrying massive, food stuffed backpacks up and down a couple of thousand feet every day. Finding wildlife was an arduous time consuming chore that required walking all day long. We could see bears through our binoculars but they were always little brown or white dots on the other side of a valley or up the side of a mountain. Getting close to them seemed top be impossible. But then, as is the nature of anything in the wilderness, the unexpected happened. We crested a ridge and almost bumped into three unsuspecting bears feeding along a high ridge over looking a glacier. We crept closer feeling a bit like the dog that had caught the car and now didn't know what to do with it. We felt very vulnerable with a huge brown bear with two cubs so close to us and were torn with a desire to put as much distance between it and us and the desire to get close to it and capitalize on our good fortune. Eventually it wandered away having never noticed us sitting on a nearby outcrop.'

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