Greetings @GravitySucks . I am so behind in EllGab it is ridiculous.
Thanks for responding to my request for more stories about life in the mountains. I never saw a Pine Marten or a marmot in person. What does a black bear smell like? Your porcupine story has a good ending.
It’s not so much the musky smell of the bear as it is their scat. Black bear scat, to me at least, is very pungent. Once I had the opportunity to smell it, and to see the bear in the sapling at close quarters, my brain registered the fight or flight response and from then on I was very sensitive to it. Especially if it had rained recently. For some reason it made me hyper aware.
About 7-8 years ago I picked up that same scent in Glacier National Park in Montana. I backtracked a bit on the trail. I shimmied up awoke rocks and sat. Within a few minutes I saw two black bears move through a berry patch. It had been 30 years since I had smelled it in NY.
Our brains have a way of associating memories with smells which makes the recall very vivid. I pity people that smoke cigarettes. They generally lose this ability.