> Being a good mom and always wanting to teach, I picked up our daughter, and > said, "oh, look at the bear!" and then immediately, thought, "what the heck > am I doing, we gotta get out of here!" > > And we left real quick.
Boy, I didn't. Here's my bear story: Back in about 1990 when my husband lived in CA and we were dating, we went to Yosemite to go backpacking one weekend. Well anyone who's been there knows that it's notorious for bear problems, as the bears have learned that humans are suckers. We were told that we had to hang our food bag across a rope strung between 2 tall trees, instead of the usual tie-off method. Since there aren't many tall trees x number of feet apart, my husband said "ah, we'll just tie the bag off to another tree." We had no food in the tent, no personal items, etc. and during the night, a bear came thru our campsite, went around the whole tent sniffing (while I'm lying there thinking, "there's a bear 6 inches from my face!") Then the bear immediately went up the tree where the bag was tied off, swatted the bag down and started ripping. As soon as it went up, we realized what was happening, threw on our boots and ran out of the tent. All I could think of was that the medication I HAD to have for my kidneys was in that bag, and without it--a three hour hike out, plus a several hour drive back--and I could be in deep doo-doo. So I was pretty possessive of that bag! The bear was behind a downed tree, ripping at the bag, we started yelling and throwing rocks, shining our flashlights. The bear came up from behind the downed tree and went "Rrrrrrr!!" To which I responded "RRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!" And the bear went "oh, s***! I'm not gonna mess with her!" and turned, still w/ the bag, and took off, breaking the climbing rope that the bag was tied to with this loud "zzzzzzing!" We found the remains of the bag the next day, fortunately all our personal items (and meds!) were intact, altho the bear had eaten every speck of food. Some kind hikers shared their trail mix w/ us, as they knew we had nothing. But we had to hike out early, which sucked. Not that I'd ever try to confront a bear like that again, or recommend it. Looking back, it's a pretty funny story, altho at the time it was life or death for me. Robyn S
