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[at-l] Cooking attracts Bears

If you like to camp with black bears remember this: Cooking attracts bears.
 Case in Point:  In early April 1989 we hiked from Susquehanna River to Rt
183 in PA.  A few days into the hike we hiked past two hikers while
ascending from Swatara gap and they warned us about the snakes up there. 
They said, "Don't wory about the bears, its the snakes you have to worry
about."  We camped in the woods about 2 miles south of Rausch Gap Shelter. 
We cooked some Beef Stew, ate and cleaned up the mess then retired to the
tent to look at tomorrow's maps.  About 30 minutes later, we heard this
noise which I compare to the sound of a bail of hay being dropped from 20
ft.  I said to Bogey' "What was that?"  Remembering what the hikers earlier
had told us, he said, "Its just a bear".  Then we laughed.  Then we heard
it again.  Bogey looked out the rear window of the tent and said, "My God,
Nance, it is a bear".  I looked out and she was standing up near a hollow
fallen tree and was throwing her body weight down on the hollow log
catching it with her paws, Big PAWS, with BIG CLAWS!  She was trying to
flush up our tent.  She must have smelled the stew in the wind and followed
the smell directly to our tent.  We never encountered a bear till then so
we decided that we should just keep still and quiet.   WRONG! ! !  She came
on the left side where Bogey was and she was 13 ft away, we watched her at
the front, closing in at 8 ft. and then when she came around my side she
was close enough that I could have touched her nose, and what a BIG NOSE it
was!  And big TEETH too.  I said, "Bogey we'd better do something or
there's gonna be nylon tent fabric, fur, teeth and blood all over this
place."  We grabbed our boots, pots and pans and banged them all making a
heck of a din.  The bear bolted about 15 ft in a single bound and wandered
off hesitantly, stopping and looking back.  We could still see her shadow
in the dark.  We knew she wasn't going to give up so we did.  We got out of
the tent and packed up in 5 minutes, a new world record, and ran off in the
moonlit night, making all the noise two hikers could make. When we arrived
at Swatara Creek there were two fishermen there who told us the state had
stocked a female and two cubs up there last fall and she has become a pest
to everyone on the trail, eating hiker food and losing all her fear of
humans.  We returned the next day and found many bear rubs and scratchings
and scat.  We stopped at the Horseshoe trail junction to eat a few snacks
when off to the right on the yellow trail we heard crashing and thrashing. 
Hikers, I mused?  No, Hikers do not crush trees with a single step.  (You
know the size of the wood being broken by the sound and these were small
trees)  Yup, it was the bear again,  so again we took off down the trail
crashing and thrashing through anything that got in the way until we had 10
miles between us and the queen of the woods.   By the way we met a
rattlesnake near Port Clinton and she was not as big as the bear and she
never showed her teeth and did not circle us.  We just walked by after
shoving her off the trail.   
Morals of the story:
 Don't cook---it attacts bears :-}
 Don't cook at your campsite---do it miles away (like 10 or 20) :-)
 Don't think a bear will go away--they won't, they like to eat easy food,
like you {:->
 Just stand up and confront a bear if you are bigger, hairy-er and have
bigger teeth. :-o
      Happy Hiking and God Bless,         Slim of Bogey and Slim of York,
PA

p.s. Thanks for all the responses to the poison ivy post.  Love you all.




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