Video courtesy of Jaime Stien
A man on Whistler Blackcomb captured a close call with a bear on video while skiing down one of the mountain’s runs.
Vancouver resident Jaime Stien was up on a chairlift when he first spotted the bear.
As he made his way down the mountain and around a blind corner he noticed the bear and her cub on the ski run.
“I came over a knoll and saw something in the middle of the run and stopped,” Stien said. “I realized it was the same bear from the chairlift.”
Stien waited, but after standing around for a while he decided to slowly pass the bear and capture it on video to show his son, who was at a freestyle skiing camp on the mountain.
As he passed on the right the bear took a few quick steps towards him, that’s when he decided to speed away.
“As I got closer I saw she had a tiny little cub with her… that’s when she started to charge towards me a bit towards the end, and I was like ‘okay I am getting out of here’,” Stien said.
The Vancouver local says he was on the bottom of the run when he saw a second cub hidden away on the right side of the run, making him realize he got between the bear and her cub.
“The key learning for me is just how important it is that we coexist with nature… [we need to] be aware and give bears space, I thought I was giving her space but sometimes you need to give more space,” Stien added.
Julian Kolsut
