Like I've said before, living along the Eastern Sierras means I grew up with plenty of camping trips. There's nothing finer than waking up with the sun and cold morning dew, stiff and dirty, and ready to seize the day after seizing a strong cup of coffee made over a fire. Making camp miles from anywhere opens up great opportunities to see things dreams are made of, like unobstructed sunrises through tall pine trees or views of the Milky Way suspended above the mesh roof of a tent in the desert. It's the kind of adventure that helps a person appreciate the natural world-- or, at the very least, a hot shower and a comfortable bed. It's something stories are made of.
Even if those stories are actually misadventures, they still make for a story.
I like to tell this one. I'm sure I've written about it before in at least one of the blogs I've lost to the sands of time and forgotten passwords, but it's one from my time as a kid in Bridgeport, California. It's a little town known for trout fishing, hunting, winter sports like snowshoeing, and other recreation in its immediate area, including camping. One summer day my father decided to take me camping, and I happily tagged along. We took his truck to a place called Buckeye Canyon, about 20 miles west of town with at least a quarter of the drive being a winding dirt road. A creek ran through the canyon, and scrub brush and pines covered the narrow expanse and campsite he decided to settle. We hiked, set up camp, and all that other father-son bonding stuff. Once it got dark we started a fire, made some food, cleaned up, and turned in for the night.
I insisted that I break in my "new" tent since I'd just bought the dusty $5 army surplus antique, so I laid in the stuffy canvas thing awake with a headache and a sinking feeling that my five spot could have been better spent. The night dragged on, and I could hear my father snoring a few yards away in his nice nylon tent. Pride kept me in my mildewy prison, so the night dragged on. The sounds of the creek and the little woodland creatures melded with the silence, which made the sounds of huge lumbering footsteps all the more obvious sometime around midnight.
We assumed leaving the cooler with the milk and eggs wouldn't garner any attention. We locked the one with the bacon and other tasty stuff away, all of our trash was properly disposed of, and the milk and eggs were in sealed containers inside a sealed container. However, as our luck would have it, the big black bear that came across our camp saw the cooler and was curious to know what was inside. I saw the thing through the mesh door of my tent-- massive, black, grumbling while sniffing at the old metal ice chest. She lifted the box over her head with one paw-- that box, mind you, being a pretty heavy metal thing full of stuff that she lifted with one paw-- and dropped it to the ground effortlessly. I heard my dad rush out of his tent, shouting at the bear to leave (along with other colorful language I'm pretty sure came out but I forgot) only to have the bear look at him in a "What do you think you're going to do?" way. My dad went back into his tent, and we waited the bear out until she left.
It was quiet after awhile. My heart was racing, and my headache was pretty much forgotten about. I saw the light from my dads lantern glowing through the walls of his tent.
"Hey, Aaron?" My dad said calmly.
"Yeah?" I responded.
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
"You want to just go home for the night?"
"Yeah."
We left the camp as it was, not too concerned about anything being stolen since the huge hungry bear hanging around the camp was a bit more of an issue at the time. We got back home hours before the dawn, and once my head met my pillow I was down for the count. After a hearty breakfast and a much more cushy morning than what I'd expected, we drove back to our camp to assess the damage the bear had caused.
The old Coleman cooler was open on the ground, with claw marks punctured into the corner of the lid, eggs cracked all around, and the paper milk carton ripped open and drained. We weren't aware bears could be so crazy about milk (marketing executives for dairy farming, I'll be waiting for an advertising position, I have some ideas for commercials) but other than the mess from the cooler, the camp was serene. Our tents stood untouched. The fire ring was cold and full of the ashes from the night before. The morning sun, tall pine trees, and scattered scrub set the beautiful backdrop to what had been the scene of a black bear food robbery the night before, and as we broke camp I couldn't wait to get back out again.
It wasn't my first time camping and dealing with bears, and it certainly wasn't the last. It's nice when everything goes without a hitch, but dealing with the local wildlife and unfavorable weather make for good stories. Misadventures, like having breakfast stolen by a bear in the night or being run out of camp by a lightning storm, keep things exciting. They mix things up! Of course, it's nice not having the ever-living shit scared out of me by a massive black bear that could have easily mauled my face off and stolen my breakfast, but because I experienced that trip I gained an even greater respect for the outdoors and a better understanding of how strong and badass bears can be (even if they aren't ghost warriors with a thirst for vengeance).
Remember: don't feed the bears, and have fun regardless if things go as planned or not.
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