A Tale of Too Many Bears and Two Knuckleheads
by Donald E. Neske
My friend and I were on a truly epic adventure during my college days, a cross-country camping trip. Actually, we did it twice. From New Jersey to Montana, to Oregon, to Washington, to California, to Nevada, to the Grand Canyon, all over this vast and beautiful country. Coming from the suburbs of New Jersey, I have to confess that I didn’t always know what to expect in the wilderness, even though I was a Boy Scout when I was younger.

On this particular leg of the journey, we had just traveled through Yosemite, and needed a place to stay. Preferring to avoid the National Park tourists, we found a little tent on our atlas, signifying a National Forest Campground. (If you’ve never camped out in a National Forest, the first thing you realize is that there are no showers, any many times there's only outhouses with stinky toilets. For us, this meant less people, and especially less noisy and artificially lit campsites.)

We pulled in, and the camp attendant warned, “Be careful, boys. There’s bears here. Lottsa bears. Be careful to store your food inside your locked trunk." And, "Be Safe.”

Did I say we were from Jersey? These days you read story after story about bears in Jersey. The people’s houses are encroaching on the bear’s territories, and the bears are making a comeback too. Suburbanites don’t know how to deal with wildlife like raccoons let alone bears. But back in the day, bears were very rare in NJ. I had certainly only seen them in zoos. And, I'm sure that's still the case for most New Jersey residents.

Hearing of bears inside the campground was exciting. Scary, but also exhilarating. This could be our chance, our only chance, to see bears in the wild. So after we settled in and set up camp, there were two things we noticed about this huge and barely utilized campground. The first was that there was no fire wood to be found. The only thing there was to burn was giant pine cones. They burn intense, but very fast. We brought some wood with us from our last camp, but it wouldn’t be enough... The second thing we noticed was that the few people there were seemed huddled up into the opening corner of the campground. They had created a compound of sorts. It turns out they had circled their wagons, so to speak.

Well "the two knuckleheads from Jersey," wanted to see some bears and get some pictures. After eating, we carefully cleaned our campground, even watering down the picnic table. Then we took some hotdog buns and put catsup and mustard on them, and stealthily placed them in the closest dumpster, which was close to the huddled masses, but still close enough.

Armed with cameras, we waited for the bears to arrive.

Now as the sun set and day melted away into dusk, a strange thing began to happen. An eerie, persistent drumming began, far in the distant reaches of the campground.

"What is that?" we asked the ranger. "That? Why that’s the bears banging the lids of the dumpsters on the other side of the park,” he told us. He went on to ask, “you cleaned up your site and stored your food real good?"

Uh oh...

Maybe putting those hotdog buns in the dumpster wasn’t such a good idea? Nah. We’re young; we’re stupid; and we’re from New Jersey. What could we say?

As it grew darker and still darker all around, the drumming of the bears grew louder and louder. It developed into a disorienting cacophony of sound… and fear. We began to imagine, in the smallest of ways, what it must be like to be in the military, staked out in a jungle, waiting for an enemy to inevitably arrive.

All of a sudden the night exploded into sound! Dogs barking! People shrieking! Yelling! Yelling at the bears! The sound of people banging pots and pans! Rocks being thrown at the intruders, hitting the dumpster.

The boy from Joisey grabbed his camera, and tried to get close enough, but it was too dark. Pitch black. And with the invasion of the bears underway, it didn’t sound all that hospitable near the dumpster. Retreating back to the campsite, we stood there not knowing what to do. And then it happened, a herd – is that the right word – a herd of bears ran through the edge of our site at top speed. They were so fast and it was so dark that we didn't get a shot off from our cameras. All we saw were shadows.

But let me tell you, those were impressive shadows charging through the background our little world. We took as many pinecones as we could and fed the fire until it was 10 foot tall. The pine cones burned hot, but they burned fast. We dad to scare away those bears!

We grabbed our hammer, hatchet and mace and stood on top of the picnic table for the next hour or so – ocassionally coming down to feed the hunger of our fire - until we were pretty sure the bears weren’t planning a second strike.

We did not sleep well that night.

The end.