An essay by Cheryl Axton
I was 28 years old and 6 weeks pregnant with my first child when I went on my first backpacking trip to Yosemite. We were 13 miles out in the back country, and it was time to make camp for the night. When we were finished cleaning up after dinner, we set out to bear bag our food to protect our food supply from hungry bears. Standard bear bagging practice requires counter balancing two bags of food at least 12 feet high and four feet out from the main trunk of a tree. We searched for an appropriate tree, but could find none near our camp. Finally, we settled on a tree in camp which we could monitor during the night. The lower branches were weak, and we finally counter balanced the bags of food 10 feet off the ground and three feet from the trunk of the tree.
A fully grown black bear averages nearly 300 pounds and can have a reach of up to 11 feet. Clearly, we were risking our food supply by hanging our precious stash just 10 feet off of the ground. Considering that we would have to cut our trip short and hike 13 miles out without any provisions if we lost our food supply, the four of us arranged our sleeping bags near the tree. We figured that we were close enough to notice if a bear attempted to steal our food.
I guess we were all tired that night after hiking about 15 miles, including climbing up Half Dome. Obviously, we slept too heavily to hear the bear tearing our food down from the tree. Ken woke up, and thought he would check our food supply. While laying in his sleeping bag, he fished out his flashlight and pointed the light up in the tree. He discovered that the food bags were gone, and when he moved the flashlight beam down to the ground, he saw two silvery eyes staring back at him. Ken yelled, “The bear has our food!”, and all four of us sprung into action. There we were in our underwear and hiking boots, running around screaming and banging pots and pans to try to scare the bear away. I am certain that if the bear were not so scared, he would have laughed at our antics. Instead, he ran away.
We surveyed our loss, and it was bad. The bear ate five four-man dinners, three pounds of dried fruit, about a dozen power bars, and five days of lunch and breakfast. We were able to save a couple of packages of rice cakes (even the bear wouldn’t eat them!), a few dried apricots and a couple of beef sticks. Not much left for four people, including one hungry and nauseous pregnant woman.
We gathered up the food remains, and placed them between us and went back to bed. Visually, think of a “wagon train” of sleeping bags protecting our food supply. Several times during the night, the bear tried to sneak past us to grab the food, but we managed to scare him away each time. By morning we were exhausted, but our meager food supply was safe.
When we got up, the bear retreated to the far side of the creek. He stood there, beautiful with his long red fur glistening in the morning light. Rocking back and forth, he made a strange moaning sound. I hoped that he had a nasty stomach ache, but I think he was just moaning with wanting more food.
For breakfast, we had a gruel of boiled rice cakes. Disgusting! I was nauseous with morning sickness, and could not eat. It was a long 13 mile trudge back to civilization and the best cheeseburger and chocolate milk shake I have ever experienced.
NOTE: If you are in the back country, store your food in bear canisters. We put ourselves at risk by placing ourselves between a hungry bear and an easy food source.
