We had an uneventful hike back to the pass and Republic Creek. We'd been hiking along for about an hour when I saw Steve stop on the trail, bend over to look at something, and stand up while making some noise. I catch up and see what he was looking at: bear scat that was not on the trail when we had hiked up. No idea if it was a black bear or grizzly, but we didn't stick around to find out. We continued to hike and were sure to make lots of noise (and keep the bear spray handy). Just when I was starting to relax, we see more bear scat. We ended up seeing bear scat three places on the trail - and no clue which way the bear was heading. I was hoping we wouldn't find a bear sniffing around our car when we got back to the trailhead! I was relieved when we reached our car without incident.