EXTREME HAMMOCKING

[BuckeyeFan]

Back when I was a ground dweller, I was camping in Big Bear, CA. Dad didn't tell me he hadn't packed a tent for me and my buddy, so we found a sheltered spot and bunked out on the ground with our sleeping bags. Somewhere in the middle of the night I woke to something walking across my back. Not sure what it was, but I didn't move for fear it may be black & white in color.

A few years back a couple of friends and I did an overnight kayak trip on the Shenandoah River. I was sleeping about 8' up the bank where the river was about 12' wide, it was in a back channel around an island. Sometime in the middle of the night, a deer screamed at my friend and scared the be-ge-bers out of him, but we eventually went back to sleep. Sometime later I woke to the sound of a "whoosh...whoosh" crossing the river and then...silence. Whatever it was covered the 12' river in 2 steps...does bigfoot exist? I'm leaning toward a 'hell-yeah!'

Sent from my motorola one 5G ace using Tapatalk

[Twistytee]

All I can say, is wow.
Wait a minute, once a bear tried to abscond with my food and pack, but it was tied to hammock with amsteel
All that jostling woke me, the bear was gone (temporarily) when I got up to see what was swinging my hammock.

And that pix of your bison, that’s no bullsxxx!!!

Cool pics BC9696. I can attest to Phantom telling the truth on this one - I was there to witness the event. That bear was after our group camp the entire night. Trip report link below.

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ight=John+Rock

[Hang Williams]

Cool pics BC9696. I can attest to Phantom telling the truth on this one - I was there to witness the event. That bear was after our group camp the entire night. Trip report link below.

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ight=John+Rock

That report about the night before someone's quilts getting shredded when they weren't in the hammock makes you question how that might have gone if they'd stayed. Definitely a good idea to keep food away from your sleeping area.

[Twistytee]

That report about the night before someone's quilts getting shredded when they weren't in the hammock makes you question how that might have gone if they'd stayed. Definitely a good idea to keep food away from your sleeping area.

Yep. Foxpoop did the right thing and left his set-up hoping the bear would get bored and move on. Unfortunately it had gotten acclimated to easy food at nearby campgrounds and so continued to circle our camp all night. It was a juvenile black bear - not yet fully grown but still dangerous. A lot of the group stored their food in bear resistant canisters, but not everyone was as diligent.

I’ve had several hammock encounters with black bears in the Pisgah, Smokies and Nantahala National Forest. One in the Smokies where the rangers were forced to close several backcountry sites and set-up game cameras and dummy pup tents to try to track behavior of a repeat offender. And another in the Nantahala last fall where one came up to my tarp in the middle of the night, huffing and puffing and looking for food. We had all hung our food bags at an appropriate distance away from camp, so it left without further incident. Still unnerving when the only thing between you and the bear is some thin nylon.

The next day we ran into several hunting dogs who were tracking bear in that section of the forest. One was badly injured by one of the bears and I expect it didn’t survive the night. We contacted the owner via info on the dogs collar, but he had no intention to retrieve it from the elevation where we’re had camped for the night. Another group of hikers with their own dog took over caring for it and attempted to get it down the mountain the following morning.

[cougarmeat]

I store my food in a canister and this summer I may add a Ursack to handle any overflow. But canister or not, food is always stored AWAY from camp.

[oldgringo]

I don't want to even think about packing out a buffalo.

[BC9696]

Just a suggestion for those camping in Beartown. I crush up a chlorine tab in a heavy ziplock and sprinkle it around my campsite (whether truck camping or backpacking). Keeps everything from rodents to bears away, one whiff and they are bummin' hard. For camps that will be up for a season we use a combination of chlorine dust and pebbles that last longer, even in rainy seasons. Learned this from an old guy in Utah who parked his beater truck at a trailhead (Wasatch) and used chlorine. When he returned three cars are destroyed by bears but his truck wasn't touched. They can't smell your food if their nose is on fire.

[OlTrailDog]

I didn't catch where the hunt was at? CA - Alberta perhaps.

[Hang on!]

That sounds like a good idea. Are there any environmental concerns?
Thanks, J

[Darbe]

Many years ago, my sister asked me to come car camping to a very popular state park here in northern Illinois. The weather being beautiful and I didn't feel like stuffing myself into any of my tents with kids or my sister and her husband, so I was cowboy camping. Next morning everyone was wondering why I never got up to chase off the racoons that invaded our spot since I was right there by the picnic table. I told them that I never heard a thing all night. "But they were walking over you"! Back then when outdoors I slept like the dead.