I wonder if some sort of concensus could be arrived at indicating the "average" number of times bears might be seen at the portal per a given number of visits? Or, to express it another way, what are the odds of a bear sighting in any one visit (where, of course, the length and times of the visit would have to be known).
I wonder about this because I don't know from reading many posts over the last few years both here and on the portal board if any conclusions can be drawn. Some posters project that they've had multiple bear sightings whereas others might say, for example, that they've only seen one bear over multiple visits.
Myself? On my one day hike of Whitney (2004), I did some acclimitization at Mammoth Lakes prior to arriving at Lone Pine and Whitney Portal. On the morning I left Mammoth Lakes, a shadowy figure was seen in the darkness leaving the area around a dumpster in the motel parking lot -- presumably a bear, althouth I couldn't be 100 sure.
But -- just a minute or two later, driving down the main drag, a huge black bear crossed the road directly in front of me (giving new meaning to the term "lumbering").
There's more! On the day of my Whitney day hike (two days later), I left my vehicle in the parking lot at the portal to walk to the trailhead and began my hike at 4:00 AM. Within the first mile of the trai I ran into some fellow hikers and we started talking. They told me they had seen me in the parking lot and asked, "Didn't you see that bear walk right by you?"
(I hadn't!)
More interesting to me are mountain lions. They say that if you ever are so lucky to actually see one in the wild that, by that time, at least 50 mountain lions have seen you!
