Black Bear Incident: I went backpacking over the weekend in Shenandoah National Park between Milam Gap and Hawksbill Gap. A one-nighter is all I could squeeze. While camping at Rock Spring Hut, I was down near the spring filtering water. I heard some commotion, GET OUT OF HERE, etc. There were several hikers there also. After I came back up, I found out there was a Black Bear right by my tent that someone ran off. When I came up to investigate (the tent was 50 ft up a hill from the hut), I found the bear had messed around with my stuff a little bit. The plastic lining in part of my backpack had holes in it and a blue water jug had holes. All the food/scented items was down by the hut with everyone else. I really have no idea what made this bear take such an interest in my stuff. Here is where it gets strange. After it turned dark and just before I was dozing off in my sleeping bag, my wife ask me where my boots are. I said they were outside the tent as I swapped them out for Choco Sandals as soon as we arrived there 4 hours or so prior. I leaned out my tent door, shined the flashlight over there, GONE. No boots. I decided to check for them in the morning, assuming it was just too dark to see them. When I awoke in the morning, my boots were definitely gone and the tent was in the middle of a sea of ferns. My friend found one boot on its side around 50 feet from the tent. When I picked it up, I found bite marks on the heel (picture). We spent almost 30 minutes searching the area for my other boot with no success. I eventually had to accept it was gone. I also was super thankful I had my Choco Sandals, though the ankles & toes were a bit sore for a day. I can only assume the bear ran off with my other boot. Im not sure when it happened but there was plenty of time when I wasnt at my tent. Odd thing is that hours before all this went down I was talking to do some other hikers who told me that they had a situation with a bear further northbound that took some guys boot. I talked to a volunteer NPS person later who suggested that the bear (who other hikers reported as slightly bigger than a cub) was maybe trying to determine what was food and was attracted to the perspiration on the boot. I am going to report this to NPS authorities so that have a record, but was curious if anybody else has experienced this. A complete first for me. Bad news is I dont have nice hiking boots anymore. Good news is that you can backpack on Chocos for a little while.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 02:46:25 +0000
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