My last close call was this past summer when I was walking down a grassy road from an old cutting. On the end of it was some small birch trees and then a small opening just before an old skidder road. We never saw each other until the sow started snapping it's jaws and making some funny sounds I looked to my right and saw her and 2 cubs heading up a tree. The sow was around 15 feet of me and scared the crap out of me. I hollered and it did no good.. I decided to try to sound like an old hound and with that she jumped back around another 15 feet. Then I slowly backed my way out of there to get more ground between us. It was not a very friendly encounter at all. I was some glad she let me back away from her.. I then waited a little while to give her and the cubs a chance to get away from me and continued on making sure to make some loud sounds of my own all the way in there..