Terrifying moment runner comes face-to-face with a mother bear and her cubs on hiking trail

This is the chilling moment a runner came face-to-face with a mother brown bear and her two cubs on a hiking trail in Sierra Madre, California.

The runner, Laura Gold, managed to capture on her phone as she tried to escape a terrifying showdown with the adult bear after it abruptly turned and charged toward her.  

Despite her attempts to scare them away by roaring and stepping back, the trio persistently charged toward her on the trail, the video shared by @_lauragold shows.

In the footage, the runner, clearly frightened, takes deep breaths while continuing to back away and roar. She can be heard reassuring herself, saying, ‘Alright, alright, we got this.’

‘While I was trail running alone, I was about 5 inches from hitting momma bear after turning a tight blind corner,’ Gold wrote on her social media. 

‘To prevent myself from hitting her, I stopped as fast as I could and almost slid down the mountain doing so. I had already seen the cubs, so I knew I wasn’t safe,’ she wrote. 

She also used a whistle, stepping back to a point in the video where the bears are no longer visible. 

However, the trio lingered on the trail for a while until the runner ran into a male hiker and sought assistance.  

She mentioned that the trail split behind the bears, and both paths descended the mountain. 

‘There… there are bears,’ she can be heard saying in a trembling voice. The hiker responded, ‘I saw them.’ 

Gold wrote on her social media: ‘I used every trick in the book (except bear spray) and nothing worked. Momma bear continued to move towards me until another hiker came from behind me and helped scare them away. 

Teaming up with the mail hiker she came across, they guided the bears to take one trail, while they themselves went down the mountain using the other. 

The video has achieved overwhelming responses from social media users, with many being shocked by the heart-stopping moment.