I maintained a luxury spike camp in a wilderness area near home for several seasons. I would go in around Labor Day and leave cooking gear, food, down bag, thermarest, bivy, etc. Then on Friday evening before season opened I could get off work and haul ass and arrive at camp, packing nothing more than rifle and day pack with the usual stuff in it. In 2002 however a very rare weather event rolled in, but I had everything to survive in comfort. Arriving at camp just after dark in a couple inches of fresh snow, around 7,500 ft, imagine the sinking feeling when I discovered everything scattered to hell and gone and destroyed. An aggressive black bear had cut the paracords holding my belongings suspended up in the high limbs and just shredded my down bag, thermarest, shelter fly, cooking gear, and canned and dried food. By this time it was 8pm or so, still snowing, the pickup was three miles and 2,000 ft below...I decided to tough it out with clothing on hand and a poncho.
A long, long night, cold, discomfort, firewood gathering, not much sleep. After a hearty breakfast of jerky and raisins I proceeded to my favorite hunting/shooting overlook...and as it began to get light, a dense fog rolled in, I mean dense, my usual 300 yard view was restricted to 30 yards. Without sight of a deer, I returned to 'camp', burned the burnables, packed up the destroyed stuff and returned to the pickup that afternoon, as tired, wet, tail dragging a derelict as you will ever see. Never to return, clearly, final score: bear 1/hunter 0.
