r32 story time.
Been backpacking/hiking all my life. Explored a lot of the Sierras. Ran into bears on multiple occasions, all in California, and once in Montana. Also got stalked by a mountain lion once, but that is a story for another time.
A few weeks ago, I went up to Mammoth Pool with a friend of mine. Mammoth pool is a beautiful area, with some gorgeous granite domes, and the most gorgeous forest meadows you've ever laid eyes upon. After swimming in Mammoth Pool for a few hours in the morning, we headed up the mountain to Granite Creek. Amazing hiking trails, and and hidden meadows throughout the forest. Granite Creek is just a few miles past Clover Meadows near Strawberry Mine.
At Granite creek there are two camp areas on the river. The north camp allows for horses and horse trailers and it was packed. Counted four super expensive fancy four-horse trailers, with horses grazing in the pasture, and more cowboy hats sitting around the camp than you can find in a shitkicker bar on a small town Saturday night. 'Murica!
Not a single spot was open, so we turned right to go into the south camp. Only one spot was open, so we grabbed it and set up tent. Then we went for a hike up the mountain on a short 5m loop. It was awesome, although parts of the trail was not maintained and log hopping was the name of the game.
We arrived back at camp near nightfall. My friend informed me she had never really seen the stars. She is new to camping/hiking experience. She also said a comet would be flying by that night and wondered if we could see it. I said ok let's do this. I grabbed my high powered binoculars and we walked from our tent site down to the creek, about 30' away. The creek was barely flowing, but there were some sizable ponds with 1' long trout zipping about.
We found some big smooth boulders next to one of the ponds and I spread some beach towels down. We laid down flat and stared up at the sky. As twilight faded away, the sky turn into deep black galaxy of a billion twinkling stars. I pointed out some constellations. After a while, she noticed a very bright star that appeared to be moving very slowly. It was the comet! It was awesome. There was a beautiful glow around the big white orb and a little bit of the tail. I wish I had a real camera as it moved across the sky above us. We laid there for almost two hours, talking about life, and gazing into space. It was the most stars I've seen since my last trip to Death Valley to bury dad.
After a while, we decided to get back to the tent and get some rest. We climbed into our sleeping bags, and started to fall asleep. Around 11.30pm, KABOOM! A single gunshot from a large caliber rifle rang out, from a few camp sites down, about 100 yards from us. I woke up, waiting for the inevitable panic from my friend. Amazingly, she remained calm and asked me what was going on. I told her there are three possibilities. Either some guy is drunk and tripped over his rifle, a camper just murdered his friend in a twisted lovers quarrel threesome that went astray, or a bear has wandered into someones camp because they left some food out.
I sat up, put my shoes, and grabbed my bowie knife in case someone needed help. We sat quietly in our tent and listened for screams, or more gunshots. It was dead silence. Not a single murmur could be heard throughout the campsite. So we went back to sleep and thought nothing of it.
The next morning, we got up early and I'm staggering into the tree line to take a morning p!ss. The sun is not quite up yet but I could see pretty good around the campsite. I wandered back to the tent, grabbed my toothbrush and brushed my teeth. As I'm standing there outside the tent, I looked down. There is a stump sticking out of the ground about 5' from our tent. Snagged on the edge of the stump was palm sized cluster of bear fur that wasn't there yesterday when we set up the tent. I know this because the previous day when we set up camp, I had used the stump to set our water bottles and other things on. At some point during the night, a bear had wandered through our camp, right next to our tent. I told my friend about it and we had a good chuckle. I wanted to talk to other campers that morning but we decided to get a move on so we can do more exploring.
After some run offroading, and doing another couple of short hikes near Balloon Dome, we decided to head home. It was getting late in the afternoon and I wanted to show her some more awesome things on the way home. I decided to take a different route on the way down the mountain, road 5S07 which goes by Jackass Meadow, Norris Peak / Trailhead, and Portuguese Overlook. Awesome dirt road but don't crash on the washboard! We got to Portuguese Overlook and I pulled over so we can take in the beauty. We're the only ones around and along comes this older couple, a guy and his wife in their Westfalia Van. They pulled over, got out and were enjoying the views too. He and I got to talking as I was asking him questions about his tricked out Westfalia Van with custom made shower apparatus. Turns out, they had also camped at Granite Creek last night and were a few spots down from us.
I asked if they had heard the gunshot last night. His response "Oh yah, it was right next to our camp site."
He told us a bear had come into the camp to steal some food. Then he explained that five nights ago, there was a group of about ten kids, all in there young 20-something that were camping at Granite Creek. They ended up putting all of their food supplies in a tent, and then started partying all night long. They were so drunk and high with music blasting, they never noticed the bear that walked right into camp. It demolished their tent, ripping it apart, and tore into all their food. To the delight of other campers the following day, the kids had to leave because they had no food left. Then he explained last night was the fifth night in a row the bear has returned to the same camp spot, looking for food.
Moral of the story. Carry some bear protection. Bear mace is preferable, although a good knife can come in handy as well. Hunting dogs are also awesome, because the bears in the Sierras are generally scared of them and will run away. And don't camp in a spot where some dumb ass youngsters were partying a few nights before, unless you like midnight surprises.
then I remembered the preface to your story was about bears,
