Stan Mills shared some up close and personal footage of a Yellowstone National Park grizzly bear after he spotted it while he was hiking off-trail in the wilderness.
The video starts off showing Stan hiking through a remote area of the park where bears had killed animals before and you could tell because there were many bones laying on the ground.
“I was sitting in the rain under my poncho just kinda gazing off into the distance while resting under a tree when I took a look to my left. I immediately saw a grizzly walking toward me.” Stan said in a caption to the YouTube video. “I was not very visible to the bear because I was under my poncho but the grizzly finally spotted me from the movement I was making while going after my bear spay and then my camera.”
The bear can be spotted at around seven minutes and 30 seconds into the footage standing about 35 yards away from Stan.
“He sees me, he saw me first,” Stan says in the footage.
The bear doesn’t seem to mind and is unbothered by his presence and just continues to forage for food and sniff around at the ground. At one point, however, the bear stops what it’s doing and looks directly at Stan.
“I’m just going to not move or anything,” Stan says in the video.
The bear leans towards Stan to listen and watch him from afar, however, it never gets up to come after him. Stan continues to slowly move away from the bear until he gets about 100 yards away and can safely continue his hike.
“You are never supposed to get within 100 yards of bears in the park but with close surprise encounters you have no choice and at that point you have to do the right thing,” Stan said in the caption of the video.