This grizzly followed a Calgary couple along a popular trail until they finally roared at it
CBC
Howard Mah and Lori Arnason had never seen a wild grizzly until Saturday.
And if they ever see one again, they'll be sure to be carrying bear spray the next time.
The Calgary couple had set out for a short hike to Troll Falls in Alberta's Kananaskis Country on July 19 to celebrate their wedding anniversary — one they won't soon forget.
They expected the trail to be busy, as it often is, but were pleasantly surprised, at first, to find they had it pretty much all to themselves.
The solitude suddenly turned scary, however, after Mah sent Arnason ahead on the trail so he could take a photo of her.
"And as I was walking ahead, he said, 'Oh, Lori, no, stop," she recalled.
Mah had spotted a grizzly bear descending through a clearing, just behind his wife, toward the trail.
"And then as the bear walked down and hit the trail, I was hoping he would just continue on," he said.
"But he instead came onto the trail, saw us and then started walking toward us."
The frightened couple did their best to remain calm.
"We knew not to run," Mah said. "And so we just started backing up ... and then, because I was taking photos of Lori, I just happened to have my phone in my hand, so I just quickly switched it to video."
He captured more than a minute of video of the bear slowly pacing toward them as they retreated.
At one point in the footage, the bear rises on its hind legs, snorts and waves its front paws in the air as it accelerates briefly toward the couple, before resuming its plodding pace.
Mah said the animal made that "aggressive move" a few times during the encounter.
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