This morning we hiked The River Trail along the Swannanoa by Warren Wilson College. It was a perfect little hike, sentimental and soothing, an easy morning stroll. We paused in the middle of the trail on the way back, noticing an animal highway crosswise over the human trail leading from up the mountain, down through laurel, to the water below. It was a narrow and slick little path, not especially remarkable. Until we looked closer.

 We saw lots of tracks on the main trail. Human and dog are obvious and familiar:

 We saw something unfamiliar and unexpected on the cross trail. I'm not really sure why we looked harder than a passing glance. But we did. What do you make of these? This was the lead paw at the top of the trail:

 Slightly smaller than my husband's large hand. A paw wider than my hand, for sure:

 And behind were three more tracks, all looking like this:

The average size of an adult female black bear is 167 pounds. That should give her a footprint slightly larger than mine. Shaped like this:

 

I took a closer picture on the mud trail where we could clearly see all four paws traveling up the embankment, the top foot print with three following claw prints grabbing into the soft ground.  Sadly, the camera didn't capture the detail so I can't show you. But it was pretty clearly a bear and a recent bear, at that.