So for the second year in a row we are camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains during the Labor Day Weekend. To me this kind of camping in these slots just big enough to park in (but we have plug-ins!) is not umm … real camping. But I was out voted so here we are.
Last year on our camping trip, as you may recall, we had a run in with a bear – but fortunately I came to the rescue and scared the bear away, saving one and all. My family doesn’t see it that way (why I don’t know – but you might want to follow the link above) so since we are once again in bear country (but northeast of where we were last year) they are afraid of a repeat performance. I’ll let you know if we have any bear sightings.
Learning is messy!
I SO want to be camping this week! I’m trying to talk my husband into going to teh smokies which we do pretty often. We have had a few encounters with bears too. Here is our tale: http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=177083&ppuser=40723
Camping in bear country certainly raises the stakes for keeping your camp clean and being very situationally aware! It can definitely be done safely, but it does make things potentially more exciting.
I’m amazed to think of what much of North America was like in the 19th century and before when wolves were common. Wolves didn’t tend to bother people in populated areas, but camping out in the woods you certainly could run into them. That howl in the night or those yellow eyes looking at you from around your campfire would have certainly created indelible memories. I read “a book about the Abernathy Boys (which was recently made into a movie by an OU filmmaker) and the stories they lived through camping out on the frontier with wild wolves were pretty amazing. (Especially since they were 5 and 10 years old at the time and were by themselves.) I just found there is a 1911 book about the Abernathy Boys available on Google Books. This is an amazing story.
I hope your weekend camping was great and you didn’t run into any bear excitement, Brian!