My wife and my 5 year old son and I were on a small 5K hike in Kananaskis County on Saturday. We started our hike from the Kananaskis Lodge and was just about 2/3 done our loop that takes back to the Lodge and 40 yards down on the path ( as we came around a bend) we saw a head of a bear around a bush. The bear stepped out and I thought it was a blonde black bear because there was no hump on it's back and it had a neck and shoulders of a black bear but it has golden colored and light brown fur on its head. It turned toward us and stood on its back legs and tried to catch our scent 
. The bear stood +6' to the top or it's head. I told my son and wife to turn back slowly and DON'T RUN. We saw that the bushes behind the bear that there was another smaller brown animal (assume it was the cub). We backed off 15 yds and I told my wife and son to keep walking and I stayed behind a bit close to the bend in the path. I looked down the path to see if the bear(s) were headed to us or away from us. Then I saw "The Sow" Big hump on the shoulders , darker brown than the cub and thick main on her back - it was huge ! I never ever seen a bear that big ( I have only seen black bears.) It turns out we saw the cub and mistook it for a brown bear young adult. She crossed the path going south and we headed north. We must have met 10 other people hiking and walking on the same path and we told them what we saw. When we got back to the Lodge we called the park "Bear Line" and described what we saw. They said that her and and her grizzly cub are a known entity in that general area and she has been seen by several others this summer and this was probably bear #105 ( appearantly most grizzlies are tagged ). I still feel that we were very fortunate that this situation didn't go very bad. I know that this could happen when hiking but it was too close for my liking especially being close to a high populated area. I have been close to black bears in the past but this was spooky.
. The bear stood +6' to the top or it's head. I told my son and wife to turn back slowly and DON'T RUN. We saw that the bushes behind the bear that there was another smaller brown animal (assume it was the cub). We backed off 15 yds and I told my wife and son to keep walking and I stayed behind a bit close to the bend in the path. I looked down the path to see if the bear(s) were headed to us or away from us. Then I saw "The Sow" Big hump on the shoulders , darker brown than the cub and thick main on her back - it was huge ! I never ever seen a bear that big ( I have only seen black bears.) It turns out we saw the cub and mistook it for a brown bear young adult. She crossed the path going south and we headed north. We must have met 10 other people hiking and walking on the same path and we told them what we saw. When we got back to the Lodge we called the park "Bear Line" and described what we saw. They said that her and and her grizzly cub are a known entity in that general area and she has been seen by several others this summer and this was probably bear #105 ( appearantly most grizzlies are tagged ). I still feel that we were very fortunate that this situation didn't go very bad. I know that this could happen when hiking but it was too close for my liking especially being close to a high populated area. I have been close to black bears in the past but this was spooky.
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:d
. She finally agreed and turned around and jogged back. As a joke to all of this - I thought that the bear could be listening to a nice Ipod had we not stopped her.
