Badass Bushwhack, Bigass Bears

“I don't have that much of a story, I just thought this was a good title for a thread.

I got a night in the San Rafeal Wilderness this weekend. I saw one hiker and two big black bears. I hiked up towards San Rafael Mtn. Hung my pack in a tree at a campsite and lost the trail on the way to the peak. Bushwhacked to the top of the hill to see I was still a half mile from the actual summit. A thunderstorm was building so I bailed.

Decided there was time to drop down in the canyon to Big Cone Spruce camp. Ran into a bear standing on on his hind feet scratching his back on a water tank. It was about as tall as me and much heavier. Scared the (figurative) crap outa me. I whacked my poles together and said, "Hey bear!" He looked at me with what I swear was a scared look on his face, turned tail and blasted down the mountainside.

The trail down had been cleared for a few hundred yards and then disappeared. I decided I could follow the recently burned hillside to the bottom without too much damage. Getting to the creek without going over a cliff was tough - had to squirm down a drainage on all fours. I was mightily scratched up and lost my camp flip flops. Then I had to wade through poison oak looking for the camp site. Stumbled on the picnic table & fire ring but had seen no sign of a trail. Clearly no one had been there in many months.

I was thinking it was a mistake to come down there and scouted the area to weigh my options. There were two rocks stacked near the site but no sign of the trail in either direction. Looking downstream not much more than a hundred yards from camp there was another big bear. I was frustrated and bleeding and I believe I cussed him. He ran off quickly. Good Bear.

I found a better trail leading up the hill out of the creek, so I decided it was best to stay. I washed up in the creek, straightened the place up, had a couple of snorts of bourbon, and felt much better.

The next morning I headed up the trail. There was one set of boot tracks about a week old and several sets of bear tracks. I managed to not lose the trail all the way to the top by following the bear footprints. This required getting on hands & knees several times and getting terribly scratched up. Was sure glad to get back on the old fire road at the top. I'm not a kid anymore. Why do I do this stuff?”

“nice! that reminds me of one of my (mis)adventures a few years back - only we didn't encounter any bear!”

“Ya gotta admit this is a great thread title. What real hiker doesn't want a badass bushwhack with bigass bears sometimes.”

“"looked at me with what I swear was a scared look on his face, turned tail and blasted down the mountainside"

that's been my experience with bears as well. gutsy admittedly.. but seems to work fairly well as a strategy.”

“haha the last bear i saw looked at me with a look that said "oh jeez, you want me to run away???"

then she walked behind an apple tree as if to say 'there, i'm hiding now, are you happy'.

And this was inside the city limits of Boulder - in Chatauqua Park.”

“We never learn to do something easier the next time out, do we?”

“last bear i saw was in the shennandoah... three in one day. you couldn't have avoided them if you wanted to. i turned climbing uphill on a switchback and BOOM there she was! her eyes got as big as saucers and she ripped down the side of the hill.

i got up to the next switchback a few minutes later and another bear was ripping down the hill... chasing after the one that just ran from me... like it was the same bear on a moebius twist... and when it saw me it slammed on the breaks and did the fred-flintstone backpedal thing and ran UP the hill faster than it was running downhill.

bears are funny...”

“I like the bears that run away.”

“I went back to the San Rafael Wilderness this weekend (the family let me out for Father’s Day). This time I was working with a trail crew to do something about all that bushwhacking. It was like no other backpacking trip I’ve been on, mainly because the guy leading the trip supported it with goats. Goats that carried tools for working the trail, food for a barbeque feast, and 72 beers on ice.

We drove through a normally locked gate about 10 miles up to the top of the ridge Friday morning and hiked 6 miles downhill to our camp in the heart of the wilderness. This was a place I planned to see on about a 3-day backpacking trip, but access to the forest roads made it an easy hike. We set up in camp site with lots of shady oaks in the early afternoon, jumped in the creek and had some beers.

A couple of other guys, who had been crosscutting blowdowns met us there, and one conned us into an “easy 2-hour” hike up to a waterfall. The trail was badly overgrown and the last mile was bushwhacking up a creek bed. I wouldn’t have minded the beating, but there was a woman in her 70’s with us who was on her first backpacking trip since having a knee replaced. We all survived to jump in the icy pool below the fall and made it back in 4 hours as it was getting dark. The older gal ran marathons most of her life and has been on every trail in the place. She’s still stronger than most people I’ve backpacked with.

The next day we put tools to a little over a mile of trail before the heat got to us. This made the trail really nice from the ridge down to our camp for the first time since a big fire in the area two years ago. Afterwards I was intently rubbing Technu all over myself by the creek and got chewed out by the old crosscutter for getting it in the water. Oops. I guess Technu is a detergent after all.

We had a true feast of tri-tip and barbeque beans with French bread and salad, and of course more beer than we could drink. If there’s barbeque in these parts it has to be tri-tip steak. Afterwards some of us took a short walk to another waterfall and some Indian cave paintings. I would have liked to stayed up late drinking beer, but I was exhausted and went to bed as it was getting dark.

Never saw any bears this time. Too many of us, I guess. I’m not sure if the goats attract bears or keep them away, but the goats go back there often. They said the trail down to Big Cone Spruce camp has been cleared since I was there. I bought a lightweight pair of loppers I’m carrying with me in that area from now on.”