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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Funniest bear story that I ever heard:
A bunch of us would just sneak into C4 at night and throw down our sleeping bags, only to escape in the morning. This was a LONG time ago.
Duane Raleigh was over crashed out about 30 yards away. A bear started causing a ruccus and was chased out of camp four at a dead run.
As the bear was running, it planted both front feet on Duane's chest. A very rude awakening. You wake up with chest pains and can't breathe.
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Anxious Melancholy
Mountain climber
Back of beyond
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Bear Stories? I got a ton...and I love all of 'um except one. And that one I'll delay telling until later.
Where should I start?
How about the time me and my buddy Paul D. day hiked Lyle. We're on our way out, probably less than five miles from the road and it's deepening dusk. We pass thru one of those isolated clumps of pine trees that straddle the trail there, and as we emerge on the other side, note a bear's on the trail just a rope's length away and headed in our direction. The bear spots us just a little after we see him/her. We all stopped dead in our tracks, us having a whispered conversation about what to do, while the bear's acting like its sniffin us out.
Neither of us were moving off the trail. We started yelling and waving, but the bear remained fixed in place. After few minutes of this, we realized its a stalemate and elected to step off the trail to the side, thinking we'll just go around the bastard. Surprise! The bear had exactly same same idea, stepping off the trail in the opposite direction! Eying each other closely, we all moved off trail about 25' and circled in our respective directions, snorting and staring at each other, eventually getting back on the path and going our merry ways.
Have to admit I did look over my shoulder now and then for the next mile or so.....
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Brian Hench
Trad climber
Laguna Beach, CA
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Am I the only one who wonders what the steel spikes are sticking out of the rock in the original bear photo? Was that an old abandoned road, quarrying or mining operation?
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nutjob
climber
Berkeley, CA
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5-day trip to Black Kaweah via Wolverton Meadow and the High Sierra Trail.
1st night, 13 miles in, we're sleeping on a tarp under the stars. We wake up to see a bear in the tree next to us swatting at the food bag we had hung. He hits paydirt, slashing the bag as the contents dump to the ground. In seconds he's down and chowing.
We yell, scream, play harmonica, and smash a tin sierra cup flat in an attempt to bang stuff and make noise. We (two young adult males) walk toward him with arms up in a threatening display. We stop 15 feet away when he hasn't budged an inch but pauses his meal to watch us. We give up. He's called our bluff.
We decide that a few mils of nylon offered by a tent are good protection in this situation, so we set up the tent and go back to sleep.
Next morning, we salvage an untouched bag of reese's peanut butter chips, half a pack of spaghetti, and a can of tomato paste with a tooth puncture hole in it. It's enough for us to proceed with our plan, but we might have to cut down the 5 day itinerary.
In the hunt for stuff that morning, I accidentally flushed the bear out of a nearby bush. I chased him up the river valley for a short time and shot a few photos of his butt. The spot in the bushes from which he fled held the remains of numerous backpackers' supplies. He was a pro!
Now I believe in the strategies espoused by Mr. Jardine in one of his fast and light PCT books.... don't stay in frequently spots.
p.s. We made it to Black Kaweah, overall an amazing trip, but we did the 18 miles back to the car on day4 to get some pizza!
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Anxious Melancholy
Mountain climber
Back of beyond
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nutjob, classic!
i encountered one of my first a bears in a similar situation, one in which i was extremely mistaken as to his willingness to depart and how that departure might affect me. we had spent a couple weeks in C4 in 78 and needed supplies. left the ditch for a brief visit to some food warehouse (i have no idea where) and returned triumphant, ready for the next couple of weeks. Hung the food in a the tree that night, but were rudely awakened by the noise of cans thumping into the ground. Me and my mates gathered under said tree with our lamps and witnessed a bear who had skills, several skills, and a delicate palate. It had obviously enough skill to shimmy out to grasp our line and then hand over hand it back into its crotch, and skills enough to rip the duffel bag open. But it wasn't content to eat just anything as obviated by its biting into a can, and if it didn't meet its standard of excellence, not just dropping it, but throwing it to the ground.
Unfortunately, we stood a bit to long, stupefied by the events seen overhead. By the time we had gathered up enough rocks to try and dislodge the beast from the heavens, it had found our tin of honey. Outside of a few grunts when our projectiles impacted bits of fur and flab, there was no sign that the bear was going to leave until it was finished with its just desserts.
Discretion being the better part of valor, we resigned ourselves to watching a being as it reached rapture.
of course there's always the morning after. Why does it seem to end in some sort of sense of vacuum, that something's missing? We were left with wonder, punctured cans, and a sort of aimlessness...what can one expect in this magical land?
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jstan
climber
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Brian:
I am surprised you have not heard of this.
The NAB( National Alliance of Bears) has a nationwide training program for the removal of steel appurtenances to the rock.
The picture was taken at one of their outdoor training centers.
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aguacaliente
climber
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Those are bear anchors.
Bears don't toprope off no measly 3/8" bolts.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Is that bear big or does it just have a fat ass(from all the Big Macs)?..........telephoto lens?
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Sep 14, 2009 - 07:37pm PT
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Blueing- My dad tells me that the Ursus Middendorfii is named after one of our direct ancestors. Great great Uncle or something like that.
"Ursus arctos middendorffi is the Alskan Brown Bear, or Kodiak, and is the same species as grizzly, they're both Brown Bears, just differing subspecies. "
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Mar 23, 2010 - 09:08pm PT
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PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!!
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The Wolf
Trad climber
Martinez, CA
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Mar 23, 2010 - 09:31pm PT
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EP
Social climber
Way Out There
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Mar 23, 2010 - 09:37pm PT
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I saw a huge cinnamon colored bear at Parker Meadow near the Needles two years ago. It was bigger than any other bear I have seen in CA. It was griz like in appearance.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Mar 23, 2010 - 10:11pm PT
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Had a few good ones. In the late 60's in the Valley a bear climbed into the back of our '64 Impala and made itself right at home pretty much all night.
Early 80's we headed up Little Yosemite and my friend Jack set his pack down for about 30 seconds and a bear was on it. As the bear was basically ripping the pack to shreds, Jack decided throwing a rock might disuade it. He hit the bear dead center. The bear turned around very deliberately and looked directly at Jack. Nothing more needed to be said.
I went up to climb Charlotte Dome with the late T Burke. In the middle of the night, I woke up smelling Tuna bigtime. I rousted Tom and he admitted that he drained the tuna can a few feet from the tent. I gave hime a huge ration of shite and didn't sleep a minute all night. The next day we met 3 seperate parties heading back over the pass looking pretty bummed and ragged. Bears had trashed their camps during the night. Tom tried to insist Tuna was a bear repellant afer that.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Mar 24, 2010 - 12:40am PT
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BooDawg
Grizzly Bear sh#t has bells in it and smells like pepper.
ROTFLMAO, I nearly chucked my drink over my monitor after reading that. Hilarious.
I have had some encounters with Sierra black bears, mostly in the Big Ditch.
My most memorable encounter was back in Spring 1973 my high school climbing buddy, Steve, and I couldn't find a spot in C4 so we opted for Lower Pines. We had taken some mescaline earlier in the evening, around 3am I had peaked and was coming down off the stuff. We were sleeping in the open, no tent, I was restless and I turned over and saw this HUGE paw about a foot away (if not less) I slowly looked up and I saw this bear standing next to me (almost over me), sniffing over at our picnic table. It must have been easily three feet at the shoulders on all fours. I slowly pulled my bag over my head.
A very short time later we (Steve had awoken at this point) heard a ruckus in the next campground. Two So Cal climbers about our age had left some food out and they were awoken by the bear and banging pots/pans, which we started to do. The bear ambled off.
The only time I have seen a grizzly up CLOSE was in Rowan Bay on Kupreanof Island in Southeast Alaska. It was the summer of 1977 and I was working on a tender (Lillian S) and we had just towed a (cannery) barge (used by an older couple for the summer as an apartment and store and buying fish from boats) from Petersburg. After securing the barge and pontoons etc to the shore, I wandered off in the brush and came across this little cove. Standing there across the cove (about 30 feet away) was this Griz that looked straight at me, I froze and slowly stumbled backwards through the brush and back to the boat. If that sucker wanted me, no problem, it would have been across that cove in seconds. Whew!
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slevin
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Mar 24, 2010 - 03:15am PT
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Two stories.
Long time ago, early 90s. Me and my buddies went bouldering in Delaware Water Gap. Being too lazy to walk to the campground at night, we decided to camp right there and, since there were no bear-proof containers, we put our packs atop a large boulder. The boulder was a standalone chunk of rock and required some work to get to the top, I recon V1-V2 face to thin slab on top - getting down required downclimbing that face. Of course, in the morning we found our packs ripped open and all of our food consumed.
Eary 2000s, mid-December. Again, bouldering and camping at Delaware Water Gap, this time me and my wife. This time, we put our packs in the bear-proof containers and pitched a tent at the campground. In the middle of the night, my wife wakes me up whispering "there is a bear here". I listen and indeed hear sombody rattling the biner that latched the bear-proof container. In a few more seconds, the bear started muttering "how the do you open this thing?"....
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jewedlaw
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mar 24, 2010 - 03:38am PT
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OPs picture is most certainly a butt-shot.
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Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
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Mar 24, 2010 - 04:09am PT
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Our own #46, a long way from home...
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Mar 24, 2010 - 07:22am PT
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Summer of ’73, full moon, probably July. I was living in the Park, climbing part-time while doing the field research for my thesis, studying the relationships between meadows and the surrounding forests in the high country. I’d selected every fourth of 40 meadows that were near, but not too near, the Glacier Point and Tioga roads. The 9th of the 10 meadows is up from Tuolumne Meadows at Moraine Flat. I’d hiked up there late one afternoon with a ranger-naturalist and camping and surveying gear. After setting up a tent and making camp between some clusters of white-bark pines, we took a sunset stroll through and around the meadow to “get the feel” of the site. After returning to camp at dark with the full moon rising, we cooked some food over an open fire. Finishing our meal, I could see a LARGE bear about a hundred yards away, ambling towards us. I told my friend to put more wood on the fire while I gathered rocks to throw to drive away the bear. As the bear came closer and the fire grew into a large bonfire, we started shouting at the bear, and I began throwing fist-sized rocks at it. The bear hid behind the trees that surrounding the campsite, and the blazing fire illuminated the trees, so even with the full moonlight and fire light, we could no longer see the bear who was lurking out of sight. Then it began making the weirdest grunting-deep breathing-growling noise that I have ever heared and began shaking the small trees that formed the perimeter of our camp. The ranger wanted to abandon camp, but I was determined not to be driven off. But the bear persisted in what seemed fairly threatening behavior, and eventually we packed up camp and fled through the moonlit forest down to the Tioga Road where I’d parked.
Since only two of the meadows in my thesis had been previously named, for discussion purposes, I gave each of the other meadows an identifying name. This story is commemorated by the name by which I referred to this meadow: Angry Bear Meadow.
Two more to come...
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S.Leeper
Sport climber
Austin, Texas
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Mar 24, 2010 - 10:36pm PT
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check out these bears
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