I had a crazy experience last weekend on the Colorado trail, and wanted to share.
I was setting up camp at about 7:00 on Saturday night after a day of backpacking. I hung up my hammock and tarp, and left camp to fill up my water in a stream about 1/4 mile away. I forgot that I had an empty Snickers wrapper in the side pocket of my pack.
I arrived back at camp to find my gear strewn about, my tarp ripped, and my pack gone. I went looking for it, and found a mamma bear and two cubs about 200 feet up the valley. I've seen several bears on my hiking trips before, but she was the largest BY FAR. She started to approach me, and I backed off. She would turn sideways to show me how big she was, and make some chuffing noises, and then move closer. I went back to the stream where I got my water and waited a half hour, and went to check again.
The bears were gone, but my pack was too. I had about half of my gear still in my pack, including all my food. I spent about an hour looking for it, and saw the bears again further up the valley, but found no sign of my pack. The bears must have taken it with them.
While I was searching, I found something else that was a little scary. I had camped about 300 feet from another campsite without realizing it. I found two tents, both destroyed, and gear was strewn all over the place. Two flashlights were turned on and were laying on the ground. The people were nowhere to be found. It was pretty clear by the gear in the campsite that that these people had little experience being in the woods.
I grabbed a flashlight and hiked about a mile down trail to the campsite of a guy I had passed earlier in the afternoon. I told him what happened, and enlisted his help to look for the missing people. We called and looked until after midnight, and gave up. I collected my gear, took it to his campsite, and I set up there for the night.
On Sunday morning the people were still missing. We looked all over trying to find them, and were trying to find my pack too. No luck. Finally, around noon, the two guys showed up. They said they were here from Florida, and had never been backpacking before. On Friday night they were approached by the same three bears that approached me. The bears wanted their food. They blew a whistle and discharged a firearm to try to scare the bears off, but no dice. They left everything and hiked about 6 miles to the nearest trailhead, and then hitchhiked to a motel. They hiked back on Sunday to collect their gear.
When I hiked out on Sunday, I used my hammock to collect everything and slung it over my shoulder. It was awkward and heavy on one shoulder, but I got it all out. It was a long, hot, hard hike though. I was dehydrated from the heat, and didn't have anything to snack on. My car was about 10 miles from my campsite.
Luckily, I had unpacked my hammock, top and bottom quilt, and tarp before I left camp to get water. I had a few other odds and ends too, my GPS, cook set, MIOX pen, water bottles, and a jacket. Everything else was lost: my pack, maps, first aid kit, clothing, rain gear, flashlight, food, and pillow. My awesome homemade cuben tarp is ripped in a few places, but patchable, I think.
Here's what I learned:
Never leave your food unless it's strung up a tree. Be extra careful with your food wrappers. I'm normally very careful about both of these, but I was hungry and thirsty and thought it'd be okay to be away for 20 minutes. I think the empty Snickers wrapper was the problem. My other food was still sealed in the packaging.
Let this story be your lesson!
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