Bear watching in Crozet

My first close encounter with a black bear in Virginia came not in a remote corner of Shenandoah National Park or on a trail deep in the George Washington National Forest.

It came a mile or so from the Dairy Queen in downtown Crozet, in a county park where the summertime chatter of kids playing in the swimming lake can be heard from the highest trail.

Mint Springs Valley Park nestles at the base of the Blue Ridge, framed by Buck’s Elbow Mountain and Little Yellow Mountain. A small network of trails cuts over and around park property. No single trail covers more than a couple miles, but the hiking experience rivals that of longer, more challenging trails in the national park and national forest.

And then there are the bears.

Though I’ve spent countless hours on trails from Roanoke to Front Royal, no place has provided more thrilling bear sightings than Albemarle’s Mint Springs Valley Park.

One early summer morning last year, about halfway through a circuit along the Big Survey Trail, a crashing sound froze me.

Twenty-five yards ahead, a young bear held the same posture. He stood for a few seconds, trying to see and undoubtedly already smelling me. The bear ambled up a steep slope, looked back and ran off.

In the months ahead, I would see bears at Mint Springs 15 times or more, and counting. Several times, a cub would scramble up a tulip poplar as I trotted through, making a clawing sound that could never be mistaken for a squirrel after hearing it once.

Reaching the top of a steep section of Big Survey another afternoon, I nearly bumped into a mother bear and cub.

We scattered in opposite directions. But a few yards farther along, a third bear emerged from the trailside, crossed in front and padded along as I snapped a picture.

It seemed to hardly notice or care. I backed away, caring a lot about such a close encounter with a wild bear in his backyard.

It would get better.

A few weeks ago, I surprised a large bear that was already up a tree by the fire road. It slipped from one limb, fell to the next, raining leaves and twigs down, and perched 15 feet overhead.

We traded looks, and I followed bear protocol, promptly leaving the area and giving him no further reason to consider me a threat.

On the cool morning of Sept. 12, I enjoyed a 10-minute display of a bear showing off incredible balance at the spindly top of an oak, where it munched on young leaves before scaling down the trunk with alarming speed. (A video of this encounter is at DailyProgress.com.)

Just a guess: These many sightings involved the same few bears. And visiting the park frequently bumped up the odds of seeing one.

One of our photographers, on the other hand, has been to Mint Springs a dozen times, at dawn and dusk, in search of the animals. No luck so far.

Short of a bear sighting, the park has plenty of wildlife.

Deer seem to be everywhere. Squirrels are everywhere. Box turtles, pileated woodpeckers, skunks, foxes, snakes and chipmunks are at home here.

I could imagine a mountain lion in the woods and believe I’ve seen a coyote, but so far no Crozet cougar has crossed paths with me. The black bear will have to be good enough - a job it never fails.