Anywhere they are hunted. They make a tasty meal... actually many tasty meals.
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Thank you for your kindness. I rarely post online, and I was surprised by the ferocity of some strangers.
My leg is healing nicely, and I plan on hiking southbound from Katahdin starting in July. I think that I will be able to sleep well after a few nights on the trail.
I think you're right, and this bear had been unlucky enough to find food close to another person's tent. According to the park rangers, a bear will bite anything that it thinks may be food. Once the bear tasted blood, a "predator/prey" response was triggered, and it was very difficult to dissuade the bear.
Glad you're ok. I was on the trail in the Smokies last week and there were all sorts of rumors, pretty much all wild exaggerations. I appreciate you setting the record straight.
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Formerly uhfox
Springer to Bear Mountain Inn, NY
N Adams, MA to Clarendon VT
Franconia Notch to Crawford Notch
Thank you for posting here, Peachpeak.
I am very glad you came through the experience relatively unharmed, but image it will stay with you for a long time. I wish you all the best in dealing with it.
When I heard this story in the news I had assumed it was simply (if I can even use that word) a matter of a bear looking for food and an inadvertent nip while it was doing so. Your report was sobering.
Thank you again for sharing the detail that you did.
Wow, nice to hear the whole story and keep the speculation under control. God's speed in your healing process and hope you get back on the horse sooner than later.
Peachpeak
Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by here and post. I'm headed to your blog now to read more. I hope you heal well and quickly, and I hope you have a great rest of your hike.
u.w.
Thank you, UHFox, rickb, Hosh and u.w. You have restored my faith in humanity.
I saw some of the personal attacks on you. There are a number of whacked out people who think human life is equivalent to insect life. Thankfully, they're just a vocal minority.
well----peachpeak----glad you are doing alright and thanks for your input about the incident......
im in knoxville and if i can be any assistance to you continuing your hike (and it fits into my schedule)----just give me a shout.......
I have done a very dumb thing, just before a weekend hike... Reading the whole story of this and watching Revonant about a week ago. Luckily, I am doing the PMT, not the AT this weekend. Anyone hear of any bear activity on the PMT lately? Also luckily, I have a terrible memory, which will serve me well in the middle of the night in my tent in the future... I hope. The whole story sounds like this was just a bear on the hunt in a serious way. The guys pack was at the opposite end of where the initial attack happened. The bear wasn't after the pack. He seemed to have a whole other agenda which is scary as crap! If he mistook the leg for the pack or food, he would have left it alone when he realized his mistake instead of continuing the assault. If Peachpeak hadn't left when he did, he may very well have died that night. The bear was on a rampage.
I wonder if there are any stories about hammackers being attacked or even harassed in any way by wildlife... but that would be another thread.
" Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt. "
For many of us, I think you restored our faith in thru hikers.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but if something like this was going to happen I am glad it happened to you. Your experience would have been easier to dismiss had it come from someone less responsible and articulate in its telling.
Your strength and apparently optimistic outlook -- judging from your post, smile in the photos and intention to pick up the trail again as a SOBO at Baxter -- is remarkable. Actually it is ****ing amazing.
I suspect a lot of people on this site who would benefit from your strory will have missed your post since it came at the end of a long and meandering thread, which is too bad.
All the best.
Here you go:
https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...night-in-GSMNP
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/new...e23487439.html
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Glad you're OK, peachpeak, and thanks for posting your story.
I wonder what American Indians did to protect their food storage?
Peachpeak- thank you for sharing your story with us. It's refreshing to get the truth about the event rather than speculation. So often in the case of black bear attacks it turns out that the victim was at fault for not taking appropriate precautions, but that doesn't mean it's always true! Sometimes in nature ( and in life) we can do everything right and things will still go badly. Your situation demonstrates this to perfection!
I hope the remainder of your hike is less eventful!
I would like to add that this incident is a perfect example of an animal that has come to associate humans with food! Perhaps even more worrisome - humans AS food. This IMHO is a result, directly or indirectly, of irresponsible behavior on the part of those of us who populate the trails. We need to be more fastidious in our efforts to leave no trace. We need to seriously take to heart the importance of "leave only footprints". We should do this not only to preserve the beauty of our surroundings but we should do this for our SAFETY as well as the safety of the animals who share this beautiful country with us!
thus ends the sermon.....
Hey Drew! I was hiking with you & your friends for a while. I know you'll remember me- Rage. Yeah, we had one come right up to Cosby Know. Me & "Shanks" (tall skinny guy with glasses & knee braces) and Chloe chased him up the hill twice that night.
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
[QUOTE=peachpeak;2069504...I think you're right, and this bear had been unlucky enough to find food close to another person's tent. According to the park rangers, a bear will bite anything that it thinks may be food. Once the bear tasted blood, a "predator/prey" response was triggered, and it was very difficult to dissuade the bear.[/QUOTE]
Interesting that you were camping near other humans, that, as well as the one bear that did bite you, there was at least one other bear associated to humans with food(GEE, wonder how that bear behavior arose?), and that you think the predator/prey response began once the bear tasted blood. Could it be that not everyone at the camp site observed well disclosed bear/human activity GSMNP guidelines, protection of ALL scented items BEYOND FOOD OR FOOD ODORS, the bear that bit you, and perhaps the one that was mistakenly killed, long before anyone was bitten, was already in a predator/prey(prey) mode threw the sense of smell rather than just taste?
Here's what I want to ask. What was a bear seeking through a tent wall? Was it you specifically or rather something it very likely smelled? Why did a bear seek you out through a tent wall? Could there be, and I for one strongly suspect this is the case, the bear smelled something on you and/or in your tent. The bear was not seeking you. It was searching mainly and very very likely initially, through smell. What was that odor? Where was it coming from?
As you relate in the account, the bear, at least one, very likely at least two, was seeking food at other campers first. Can you now see why other campers and hikers actions have a direct impact on others?
I had a similar account at Wautauga when I made the mistake of leaving a fully wrapped nutritional bar inside the tent in a mesh pocket affixed to the outer wall. The CS was heavily beaten down with leftover Spaghetti O's in the campfire ring I noticed the following morning. In the middle of the night a large female and a cub came to the CS rooting around the fire ring. The sow pushed against the back wall of the tent with it's wet nose directly up against where the bar was stored. The bear was already in a curious predator/prey mode from the food it smelled in the campfire ring. Then, it could smell the wrapped bar inside my tent. If I hadn't lightly punched the bear in the nose when inside the tent I absolutely believe it would have torn through or perhaps through touch and smell bit at anything including an arm or leg through the tent wall. Would it have been the bear looking to attack or eat me specifically? NO.
If you think 100% of bears avoid people, think again.
They dont need to be conditioned to food. Just conditioned to being near people without negative consequences. All backcountry heavily used campsites accomplish this.
The only reason bears dont kill and eat us, is that they dont know that they can. They are very smart, but slow to learn. When they figure something out, they master it.
Too much time near people.is a bad thing.
Last edited by MuddyWaters; 05-26-2016 at 13:48.
I didn't know specifically about a predator/prey mode before the attack. One of the park rangers told me the next day that a predator/prey mode was triggered once the bear tasted "meat", as he put it.
Regarding smells, I think you're referring to the posters in this thread that claimed that I had smeared myself with coconut oil. I carried a Chrome Dome umbrella for sun protection. Ray Jardine's book gave me the idea, and I used the umbrella on several exposed sunny areas. I had bought a 1 oz. container of sunscreen at one of the outfitters on the trail, but the tube was unopened. I don't like using sunscreen or insect repellent, and I hadn't needed to use them at all on the AT.
I had given myself a sponge bath from the ankles up at Russell Field shelter spring, and I had rinsed my clothes in the spring water (merino wool t-shirt and spandex shorts). My clothing dried as I walked to Russell Field. At Russell Field shelter, I had washed my feet, put on "clean" socks that had been rinsed the night before, and I rinsed my socks from that day. I'm extremely fastidious about cleanliness. In fact, at the Blount Memorial emergency room in Maryville, one of the emergency room nurses said that while some patients who haven't been hiking stink terribly, she couldn't smell me at all.