Wisconsin hikers come face to face with bear in den (with photo)

• Black bear in den

A black bear peers sleepily from its den just outside the city of Superior last Sunday. The Mike and Kirstie Zauhar family of Superior saw the bear on a walk. (Photo courtesy of Kirstie Zauhar)

Talk about it

Mike Zauhar of Superior and two of his boys were hiking in the woods outside Superior recently when they came across something that looked like a bear den.

“(Mike) walked up to the opening, bent down to look inside and, much to his surprise, he saw the face of a bear looking back at him!” Mike’s wife, Kirstie, wrote in an e-mail. “They walked away very quickly and quietly as they did not want to startle the groggy bear.”

Zauhar and his boys returned home and “told the story of the bear den over and over again as my youngest son and I listened to every detail,” Kirstie wrote. “Last Sunday, we all walked into the woods to take a peek at the den. We quickly took a few pictures and as we did, we heard little squeaks coming from the den. We did not see a cub, but we are thinking that it is a mother bear with one or more cubs.”

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