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I was about 16 when the preacher asked me to take a hike with him and his son. The trip would be on the Appalachian trail across the crest of the Smokies from New Found Gap to Davenport Gap. It was a distance of about 35 miles and would be 4 nights and 5 days on the trail.
I was an Eagle Scout an experienced camper and had spent a good bit of time in the Smokies. I was table to add some experience to the crew as well as to have a great adventure.
After a very wet and uncomfortable night at the severely crowed Ice Water Springs Shelter we awoke to a clear morning. At breakfast we learned from the other hikers that there were bears. That is, we will have bears in camp at the other shelters. Later that morning, on the trail, Dr Allen advised not to worry about bears on the trail……. He could smell bears and we would certainly have advance notice of a bear’s presence.
That evening we arrived at the shelter, an open front Adirondack stone lean to with a chain link fence across the front, After supper we saw a mama bear and two cubs emerge into the clearing below the shelter. She sent the cubs up a tree and ambled toward us to check out the smell of our supper. Having had bears in camp before, I knew that if we beat on our pans and yelled , the bear would go away. That is what happened.
The next day we made good time and arrived in the early afternoon at the next shelter. Already there was a party of young women, good Presbyterian girls, from Queen’s College in Charlotte. The preacher did not like the idea of another night in a crowded shelter, especially one with nearly all women. He decided we should continue to the next shelter. We had plenty of daylight and it should be no problem. At some point before leaving were advised…… there’s a mean bear at that camp.
Somewhere along the trail we encountered some of the Queen’s stragglers. One girl was hiking in sneakers and the going was slow. We were told a bear took one of her boots and carried it away.

The shelter was an Adirondack lean to made from logs. It had no comforting chain link fence enclosure across the front. We settled down, ate and went to bed. It had been a long day. Then we heard the bear. It was just outside the front. We had our packs hung from nails on the beam across the top front roof line. The packs and the food were what the bear was after. We yelled and beat on something and the bear apparently left. It was hard to tell in the dark. Anyway, we returned to our sleeping bags.
Sometime later, we were again disturbed. It was the bear. The ol bear was at home, his home, and he knew all about it. He waited and then came from behind and climbed up on the roof to get the pack from above. I don’t remember exactly what happened but we discouraged the bear and he left the roof. It was apparent that something must be done to remove the temptation. The solution was to take a length of parachute cord and throw it up and over a tree limb and suspend all the packs and food off the ground out of harm’s way.
The bear came back and gave his attention to the packs. It turned out that by standing on his hind legs and swiping with an extended paw, he could barely reach Dr Allen’s steel framed army surplus rucksack. He swiped one of the pockets and out came our bottle of pancake syrup and a tin of crackers. The syrup bottle broke and made a mess. The bear took off with the cracker tin. We found the cracker tin the next morning mangled, with tooth holes and no crackers.
So there we were. It was the middle of the night, we were tired from the extra miles. The bear was a better player of the game than we , and something had to be done. There was only one solution. Find a higher branch. Throwing a stick tied to a parachute cord over a high branch at night in the dark is no mean feat. It was however accomplished.
My job was to snub the line around a nail in the shelter while Dr Allen hoisted the packs as high as he could over his head. It was being done and then it happened. I can’t remember if the cord broke, or if it parted, or if the knot gave way but the pack fell. It fell onto Dr Allen’s head and shoulders, knocked him aside and hit the ground beside him. He shouted “DAMN!!!”
There it was…. the preacher cussed. It is a memory still firm in my mind.
The next day we had only a few miles all down hill, so we dumped our excess food in the garbage pit down below the shelter. Included was a big plastic bag of peanut butter. As we were saddling up to hit the trail, we heard a commotion at the garbage pit. There was loud coughing and gagging. We concluded the bear found the peanut butter and devoured the bag whole