Bear Stories anyone?

[michigan24]

I enjoyed the long thread on Bear Incidents. Does anyone have any good bear stories to share?

I have personally never seen a bear in the woods. Last year, while staying in JBL the bears kept invading the tentsite near JBL. Every 2 hours you would hear pots and pans banging and then the campers would run to the JBL porch for safety. They would hang out on the porch and go back again when they felt it was safe, only to come back an hour later banging pots and pans yelling "go away bear". I think they repeated this a total of 3 times until one guest got fed up with being woke up. (Sorry it's not a very exciting bear story!)

[morrell12]

Lets see.....Last summer at Marcy Dam SDG75 and myself were woken up by a bear running by our lean-to. It just got done getting food off the cable at the dam. Also another incident about 10 years ago.....Some hikere packed in a beer ball and one late afternoon coming back from our hike I watched the bear cap the end of the beer ball lean back and started chugging the beer....lol Nothing like a drunk bear in the woods

Nothing to exciting here either!

[mike1889]

Camping in Beaver Point lean-to at Lake Colden in 1983, 2nd night of a 2-night trip. The rope over the tree came down and we were too tired to throw it back over, so we put the food in the lean-to. I know it sounds crazy, but we were teenagers and the bear problem wasn't nearly as bad then! Big bear came by around midnight and devoured everything, scared us. We walked as quickly as possible back to our car at Upper Works first thing the next morning because we were starving! I felt badly that we contributed to the "bear problem" by our laziness and stupidity

[saveatree,eatabeaver]

I have had only two bear encounters. One at a blueberry patch in NY and the second in alaska. A was at a shallow stream where the salmon were spawning when one wandered by on the other side. I guess catching fish is more appealing then chasing me.

[Nessmuk]

I saw a Mama bear with 3 little ones last Thursday. I hear triplets are a sign of a strong gene pool.....last year I saw another family of three...the bear population in the SW Dacks is doing well!

[redhawk]

Posted in the "about me" thread (I think) is the story of the time a brown bear and I walked a trail together. It was a life altering incident.

[JClimbs]

Bearly Slept at All

On my first solo backpack trip in the High Peaks, I lugged a pack from just west of Nippletop over Colvin (took a side run up Blake), down to the Ausable Lakes valley and up Bartlett Ridge, then down to the Panther Gorge Leanto.
It was an exhausting, long day. The leanto had been razed and a new one rebuilt and it took a long while to figure that out and find the new one, so I didn't get into it until 10ish at night.
Famished and weary, I cooked up a batch of au gratin potatoes and added my one luxury canned ham to it, then began my feast. But quickly, despite putting it in my mouth, that heavy food weighed upon my eyelids. Unable to resist, I pushed the pot of aromatic dinner to the side and laid my head beside it, dinner and I lying peacefully together in the leanto.
That peace was abruptly halted along with my sleep when I awoke to the loud and frustrated snort of a bruin on the other side of the leanto wall, inches from my scalp.
I spent the rest of the night waiting to see that large furry form come around and enter, but apparently this particular bear wasn't quite up to that level of bravado. Perhaps it wasn't accustomed to the new leanto yet, whatever, it chose to remain near my brain, snorting, chuffing, and in general just keeping my awake the rest of the night!

[steve40]

I was camping at Eighth Lake Labor Day 2004 and was getting ready to get a sub out of the cooler in the trunk of my car.It was about 9:00 Pm,and a adult bear,est 250lbs passed between me and the car about 6 ft away.It didn't even act like I was there.Needless to say I did not eat the sub right away.My only encounter with a bear.Quite exciting.

[adkdremn]

A couple of years ago I was camping at the ADK Loj campground. My wife was in the tent getting our then 2 year old daughter ready for bed, and I was sitting by the campfire. I was sitting in a camping chair which was up against the bench of the picnic table. For some reason I turned around and there was a bear, right behind me, with its front paws up on the table about two feet away from me. I called my wife to look and with that it was walking away looking for some food since I didn't have any out. Later that night, I'm assuming the same bear returned to our neighbor's campsite, who were in the process of a huge feast and it promptly sat right down on top of their picnic table and ate everything in sight, nothing they did would make it leave.

[marzrw]

A few years ago, my beautiful bride and I were on a hike and about 50 - 100 yards ahead a very sizable black bear crossed the path... Well spouse spotted it first and jumped in the bushes crouching and shaking..."What do we do now", she said... "Nothing", I said... It slowly ambled through the woods as we waited. She wanted to go back for a minute... I told her they dislike us more than we are afraid of them, so we continued on with out an event... I do have to say from quite a distance it was a very sizable beer indeed...

[Boreal Chickadee]

About four years ago while hiking the NP from Piseco to Whithouse in the fall I came upon a man and his wife very near the Whitehouse end of this section. I stopped to chat, all the time eyeing the baseball bat she carried at her side. You guessed it. She had it to protect herself in case they came across a bear.

[fvrwld]

A couple of months ago while in at Clear Pond lean-to in the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness I found a large stick with several nails sticking out of it on one end. Engraved in it was "bear killer". I figured it was made to lessen the fears of someone's young one.

[Neil]

Several years ago I took my sister's family on a hike near Morraine Lake in Banff Park (they live in Calgary, 2 hours away but I'm supposed to be the expert). Due to grizzly activity in that area you are required to hike in groups of 6 based on the theory that a grizzly will be reluctant to attack a group of that size.

We were descending a long avalanche path having turned back before the summit due to thunder and lightening when 50 feet above us a grizzly ambled out of the trees onto the open avalanche path and sat down and looked us over. He scratched hs ear just like a dog then got up and strolled off into the woods. We were all pretty freaked to come so close to a grizzly especially because one charged me once.

Anyway, back at camp I, the expert, explained to my brother-in-law that grizzlies like to hang out on the chutes because of the type of food that grows there for them. He gave me quite the look as he made sure he had it right: I took him and his kids into a grizzly infested zone and then knowingly led them to a place where we had the highest probability of an encounter. He wasn't pissed or anything - in fact he thought it was pretty darn funny and had great fun telling everybody at work about our little experience.

[AdkWiley]

i work at a school bout 30 min from albany and last night my co worker heard her dogs barking and went out to find a bear in her back yard, young one bout the size of a husky standing out there. she thought that it took her puppy but she found it a few hours later hiding from the bear. it wasnt unitll this mornign wheni explained to her that it would be very rare for the dog to attack any of her dogs or horses , orher one goat. any who id love to have one in my back yard!

[redhawk]

My back yard is the times square of bear crossings for the Southern Dacks.