Mohawk Trail State Forest: "Bears live here!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL!!

Last weekend Paul, Tchazo, Jack and I all loaded into the car and headed a few hours west to commune with nature. We tend to fit in a camping trip once a year but always wish that we could do it more often. We really enjoy hiking, campsite cooking, sitting by the fire, playing with the dogs and living life at a slower pace. Luckily for us, there are plenty of beautiful camping destinations within a few hours of home. We chose this past weekend for the trip since it was Paul's birthday weekend and we chose Mohawk Trail State Forest since it seemed like it had all the right things: mountains, rivers, and hiking trails.

When we got there we found our campsite and were really excited to see that it was right next to the Cold River, which divided the park. Paul and I have come to the conclusion that our favorite camping involves water in some way. Rivers, lakes, oceans...as long as there is a body of water, we find it enjoyable. So does Tchazo. Tchazo will rock jump and swim til the cows come home. Jack, not so much. He hates to be wet and only complies with getting wet when faced with the threat of being left behind on our adventures.

Since our campsite was right next to the river, we had the beautiful sound of running water the whole time we were there. Sometimes we also had the sound of someone's blaring radio at their picnic site, but luckily that was only temporary.

We had to wade across the river to get to some of the hiking trails or else we had to walk really far out of the way to get to the only bridge. We chose the more direct, more exciting route.

Paul and Tchazo crossing Cold River. It was indeed a cold river.

For some reason, it seemed that the campers at this campground were not into hiking. We spent hours on the trails and only saw one other group of hikers. We didn't mind the exclusive access one bit and neither did the dogs.

It was a very enjoyable trip, but it didn't go off without a hitch or two. The first problem was that the air mattress we had brought to sleep on (I know we aren't very hardcore. I like to sleep on soft things.) was missing an essential part needed in order to inflate it. So, no air mattress. Unfortunately the only spot on our campsite that was large enough for our tent was on top of rocky, gravel stuff. So, that wasn't all that comfortable. Add to that the super cold air that constantly flowed in and out of our tent all night long and a few flimsy cotton blankets and you end up with one nearly sleepless night. By morning I had vowed to sleep in the car for the second night.

On that second night we had cooked a great dinner, cleaned up and were relaxing by the fire. Tchazo had gone into the tent to get away from the bugs that only seemed interested in attacking him. Jack was attached to his lease which was looped under the leg of my chair. Most of the campground had cleared out because it was Sunday night. There were only a few campsites with people including the campsite right next to ours and another one a few spots down. It was still pretty early but the family next to us had gone to bed.

Let me show you a little bird's eye view of the scene:

Notice anything strange in that diagram? Yeah, um. While we were sitting there, I sensed something to my right. I looked over and since it was so dark, I couldn't see that well but I noticed that there was a big shadow obscuring the tree behind the picnic table. Oh wait, that's not a shadow. That is a BEAR! Whenever I go camping I always read the campground signs about bears, I've always been careful to clean and lock-up food and garbage, I never eat in the tent...all of that stuff, but until right at that moment, I didn't really think I would actually see a bear. To be honest, I thought it was more of a preventative measure rather than a necessity.

Well, here we were 5 feet away from a real, live bear. My mind quickly raced back to the suggestions I had read in the the pamphlet they gave me when I checked in to the campground titled "BEARS LIVE HERE!" It had said if you see a bear to "yell, bang pots and pans, blow a whistle" to scare it away. So, I began yelling and jumping my chair up and down to scare it off. (For some reason, I felt that standing up might elicit bear aggression rather than fear.) Paul quickly figured out what I was doing and started yelling too. I realized a second later that Jack was no longer attached to my chair (remember how I looped his leash under the leg of my chair) and he was chasing after the bear. Let me say that again: scaredy dog Jack chased after the bear! He probably thought it was a big dog but I was still impressed that he reacted that way. Although it does prove once again that he has no sense of what might be a losing battle. We were scared the bear was going to hurt him so we started yelling for him and he came back.

Holy commotion!

All of this was happening in a virtually still and silent campground. We felt that we needed to warn the other campers around us and we felt that we needed to settle their potential nerves about crazy people camping next to them. When we went next door the family's truck lights were on but they weren't around. We said hello and they unzipped their tent window to tell us that they knew why we were yelling and that the bear had just been by their site. They were using their remote to make their car beep and light up to scare the bear off. All in all, they seemed pretty OK with the whole scenario and went back to sleep without us hearing a peep from any of their three young kids.

So, we moved on to the other site and came upon the couple who was staying there. The woman was by the fire. The man was in the cab of their truck and it looked like he was rummaging for something and kept accidentally hitting his horn. We headed over to talk to the woman and had started telling her what had happened when I noticed that it looked like their was another person at their site. The almost total darkness was making it hard to see but it looked like someone was bent over the picnic table. I looked closer and realized that the bear was right next to her checking out what was on their picnic table. I was totally shocked that she was looking right past it at us and didn't see it. Her dog was on the ground next to her and had no clue either. We stopped in our tracks and I managed to say, "Um. There's a bear right next to you." She started screaming and their dog started barking. So, the bear high-tailed it again. The dude in the truck came out and said something barely intelligble to her to the effect of, "yeah i told you to hold still. that's why i was honking the horn." What?!?! They seemed either very drunk or very idiotic. Either way, we didn't need to tell them since they obviously knew there was a bear in the campground.

We went back to our own site and I was still I little revved up and spooked and not really interested in sitting by the fire anymore. I had already planned to sleep in the car but now I had visions of Paul and the dogs being attacked by a hungry bear in their sleep. So, I insisted that we all pile into the car. The car being my tiny Nissan. Warm and safe we were. Comfortable we were not.

The next morning we got up had a good breakfast, took one last walk and packed up.

Paul tried to convince me to leave this story off of the blog because he knows a certain someone who worries about him (Hi Joanne!) and he didn't want to give her any reason to worry. What a good son. However, how could I not tell you about such an exciting event?! For what it is worth, I researched black bears when I got home and learned that they are not known to be aggressive. Apparently, they are just smart enough to know us lazy humans leave out tasty snacks for them. Not at our campsite! We eat our tasty snacks or else we lock them up.