Smarter than the average bear...





Our bear bags hanging high

This happened Sunday night but was too late to make my last post. I was sharing the first shelter in NC with JusMel, and three others - a solo female hiker in her 40s and a married couple in their 50s. We all hung our food bags in trees as proscribed to protect them from bears. About 10:30 PM we were awakened by the sound of a branch breaking followed by a loud thud. The married couple and JusMel went to investigate and found the couple’s food bag torn apart on the ground with stuff strewn about the base of the tree. Bear slobber covered half their stuff. They picked up the remains and used another of their drysacks to rehang what they could salvage. Thirty minutes later we were awakened again by another breaking branch and thud. This time the bear got the solo woman’s bag and ran off into the dark with her whole bag never to be seen again. JusMel and I were lucky the bear didn’t get our bags.

Who would have thought bears could learn how to get to food bags by breaking the branch they hang from? Ever since we have been very dilligent in hanging our food high and on branches bears can’t break.

The trail is always finding ways to surprise me.





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