Middle of the week for the 4th, campgrounds will likely make up for that this weekend.

Usually, the Wasatch front campgrounds are stuffed full on the July 4

weekend. This weekend, the one campground (Affeleck) I went to was empty - literally - except for me and one other family. I guess that unfortunate incident with the bear in American Fork a couple of weekends ago, coupled with the statewide fire prohibition drove everyone away. It made for a nice twilight, with a few deer walking down to the creekside 30ft away from me, for their evening drink. - Kurt

_______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com

Several bears are put-down every year in Utah for losing their fear of humans; it was indeed unfortunate that a life was lost this time, but the public is simply uninformed if they think that bear encounters in Utah are rare. *Always* be prepared for a bear. The fact that more people haven't been mauled or killed is pure luck- as more people head to the great outdoors, encounters will become more frequent. A friend used to tell me when we were camping that he wasn't afraid of a bear; he would simply run away. I protested that he was in no way faster than a bear, to which he replied that he didn't have to be faster than the bear- just faster than me. On 7/2/07, Kurt Fisher <fisherka@csolutions.net> wrote:

I guess that unfortunate incident with the bear in American Fork a couple of weekends ago, coupled with the statewide fire prohibition drove everyone away.