Ok, so here is the situation.....myself, wifey and three boys are camping up in the White Mountains of NH. We have a site right on the merger of the Glen/ellis River and Saco River for a bit of the background.
We were on our last night, so I put the food cooler in the car, but left the drink and juice cooler out that night. (Big Mistake)
Anyway, we had a good dinner that night, and went to bed around 10:00pm or so. So, about 2:00 I wake up, and my wife is waking me up as she "hears somehing" outside our tent. So, I man up and get my headlamp on, and I go over to open the zipper on the tent and get those bastages of racoons out of my sippy boxes....well, I zip the tent open about 5 inches, and I hear this "brrrrrrrr.......hhhhhiiiiiissssssssssssssss'''.. then a grunt that sounds like a bull....zip the tent back up, and then say "oh chit" its a bear.....so, now, the kids waking up and they ask why we have all the lights on...I say "its nothing, kids....just get back to bed"
Then, I hear the crash/thump and I know out cooler has been tipped on its side. (Think of one of those biggie coolers with the wheels and handles like luggage), so this aint no racoon.......Then, I hear the wierdest thing......."kaplunk...........then another kaplunk........then another kaplunk".....this goes on like 5 times......now I am starting to get pizzed as the bear better not be throwing my Sam Adams Oktoberfast into the water, lol. So, this goes on from 2:00 am to 3:15 am....longest night of my life, lol.
Finally, about 4:00 its been quit for a while and I head outside the tent....well, the bear knocked the cooler over, and drank all my wifies "Half and half" creamer for coffee....shes going to be pizzed....next, I see like 6 empty juice boxes with one LARGE puncture mark on each corner and each bone dry....2 oldest boyes are going to be bummed whith no more juices.....then I wander into the woods a littlee more and I see the big haul that Mr/mrs bear made off with.....2 huge bars of hersheys chocolate (for smores). one bag of grapes, and one entire package of provolone "circle cheese" my 5 years old calls it as its the only thing he eats.
So, after all this, I count the beers and other stuff, and everything is accounted for...so I am trying to figure out what the big "kerplunks" were? (Think of the sound of thowing a rock the size of a acorn squash into the water.
My guess is that perhaps there was another bear that the bear was throwing the rocks at, or perhaps a racoon or something?
Lesson learned, keep the cooler in the car. Also, since we had a site by the river its all sand, so we were able to get a lot of the prints around the cooler....bear paw print was about the size of my hand, so not sure how big a bear it was.
We were on our last night, so I put the food cooler in the car, but left the drink and juice cooler out that night. (Big Mistake)
Anyway, we had a good dinner that night, and went to bed around 10:00pm or so. So, about 2:00 I wake up, and my wife is waking me up as she "hears somehing" outside our tent. So, I man up and get my headlamp on, and I go over to open the zipper on the tent and get those bastages of racoons out of my sippy boxes....well, I zip the tent open about 5 inches, and I hear this "brrrrrrrr.......hhhhhiiiiiissssssssssssssss'''.. then a grunt that sounds like a bull....zip the tent back up, and then say "oh chit" its a bear.....so, now, the kids waking up and they ask why we have all the lights on...I say "its nothing, kids....just get back to bed"
Then, I hear the crash/thump and I know out cooler has been tipped on its side. (Think of one of those biggie coolers with the wheels and handles like luggage), so this aint no racoon.......Then, I hear the wierdest thing......."kaplunk...........then another kaplunk........then another kaplunk".....this goes on like 5 times......now I am starting to get pizzed as the bear better not be throwing my Sam Adams Oktoberfast into the water, lol. So, this goes on from 2:00 am to 3:15 am....longest night of my life, lol.
Finally, about 4:00 its been quit for a while and I head outside the tent....well, the bear knocked the cooler over, and drank all my wifies "Half and half" creamer for coffee....shes going to be pizzed....next, I see like 6 empty juice boxes with one LARGE puncture mark on each corner and each bone dry....2 oldest boyes are going to be bummed whith no more juices.....then I wander into the woods a littlee more and I see the big haul that Mr/mrs bear made off with.....2 huge bars of hersheys chocolate (for smores). one bag of grapes, and one entire package of provolone "circle cheese" my 5 years old calls it as its the only thing he eats.
So, after all this, I count the beers and other stuff, and everything is accounted for...so I am trying to figure out what the big "kerplunks" were? (Think of the sound of thowing a rock the size of a acorn squash into the water.
My guess is that perhaps there was another bear that the bear was throwing the rocks at, or perhaps a racoon or something?
Lesson learned, keep the cooler in the car. Also, since we had a site by the river its all sand, so we were able to get a lot of the prints around the cooler....bear paw print was about the size of my hand, so not sure how big a bear it was.
!
