I went on a hike yesterday, bagging Mt. Hale and Zealand Mtn in the Whites (about 14 miles but only a little over 4.7k ft). 
Continued ... if you dare ...
I was heading down the Zeacliff trail listening to Franco Micalizzi's "running to the airport" (from his album "Il Cinico L'infame Il Violento").
I was pretending to be making good time but my nerves were shot from lack of sleep, too much bourbon and a morning filled with shadows and fog and not a soul in sight.
I was on a steep part of the trail. It was a dense birch glade w/ lots of underbrush that reached up to 6ft high, very much like this photo taken minutes earlier, but the brush was taller, denser and the hill was much steeper, requiring focus, timing and style.
The music ended, and exactly 20 seconds into Candi Stanton's "Sure As Sin", I began a methodical hard-boiled descent down a cliff-like segment - hands, feet, heart and legs, like being thrown out of a car for fun. Suddenly, the brush about 30ft in front of me and 10ft below waved like a sharp gust of wind had blown it but from the corner of my eye I got the impression of a dark shadow moving and then vanishing - like a vampire or a bear or a cloud or a bolt of lightening or an earthquake or a round fired from a .45 by a hopped up dame looking for coke and a fuck but taking shit from nobody with my initials.
I stopped abruptly and hit pause and stood stock still, eyes wide, peering into the brush. Whatever was in there wasn't moving either. I booted my camera, held it over my head as high as I could reach, pointed it roughly where the minister of death had stopped moving and launched myself down the hill, running and leaping. I figured if it was deadly it wouldn't matter if I ran towards it or away, and at least somebody would find my camera and see what it was that had me for lunch. The woods exploded as a HUGE bull moose lunged forward, all chocolate-brown and glistening w/ sweat. He lurched off at right angles to my charge, staying parallel to the contour lines and within half of a heartbeat was gone, but not before I managed to get one barely recognizable pic. It's not Ansel Adams and some might argue it's not even animal, but I still see that beast when I wake up screaming ...
I can tell you, it wasn't pretty.