Saw my first bear of the season this morning on a walk down near Skylandia Beach in Tahoe City—quite a strange place for an ursine encounter as the industry on Lake Forest Road was bustling, and the bear (a big, honking coffee-colored guy) was not even an eighth-mile from the road.

In other bear news, Li’l Smokey, the cub rescued from last summer’s Moon fire in Shasta County and rehabbed by South Shore’s Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, has been reported alive, well and out of hibernation by the California Department of Fish and Game, who picked up a signal from the bear’s transmitter last month. Li’l Smokey was released in the Klamath National Forest in February. Another happy ending for Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care!

For more info, check out Smokey’s rehab blog.