Family has an extremely close encounter with a bear and her cubs

A family out adventuring in the woods had an extremely close encounter with a mama bear and her two cubs.

In September, Jeff of Gridlessness and his two daughters embarked on a scouting trip to plan for an upcoming hunt in northern British Columbia, Canada. It was a bit snowy, but the trip was going well until the family stumbled upon another family out for a stroll in the woods.

"We are no strangers to bears, black or grizzly, they come with the territory up here.  We’ve had a fair number of encounters, even some that raised our blood pressure a notch, but I’ve not surprised a sow Grizz with cubs at short range till now," Jeff wrote on his blog. The family of seven lives entirely off the grid in British Columbia, so they're no strangers to wildlife.

Jeff and two of his daughters were walking through some light snow when they suddenly found themselves extremely close to a mother and her two cubs.

"We were dragging ourselves through snow and sleet across an alpine meadow when we spotted her at only 20 yards. To our collective delight, she did not immediately spot and kill us," Jeff explained.

The family managed to sneak away to about 40 yards before the bears spotted them.

"She popped her jaws as she began to circle us with a nervous lope.  We were definitely not within her circle of trust," he wrote.  "As it turns out, we were also just outside of her kill-before-being-killed personal space, the importance of which should not be understated."

Thankfully the family gave themselves enough distance where the bear didn't feel threatened enough to attack. The bear took off with her two cubs and the family had an uneventful but beautiful time the remainder of their trip.

"The rest of the trip was loaded with beautiful mountains and valleys and streams.  That’s why we’re here, to be amazed," Jeff wrote.

[h/t: Reddit]