Day 3: Bear Trouble Beyond Neel Gap

I don’t intend to write an adventure novel with this blog, but today ended with a little more intensity than I would have liked.

But before the day ends, it begins, and the beginning was great! We slept like rocks at the Above the Clouds hostel. Those earplugs work wonders!

Lucky, the hostel owner, was preparing breakfast at 7:30 am. But before I could go there, the house cat greeted me enthusiastically. I took the opportunity to pet him and hug him. It’s not something I normally do, since my girlfriend is very, VERY allergic to them. So this was nice!

Breakfast was amazing by the way! Some toast with scrambled eggs and roast potatoes on the side. Before I thought about taking a photo of it, I had already eaten it all, so you’ll have to believe me when I say it was good.

After breakfast, Lucky drove us back to Woody Gap. The plan for today was to resupply at Mountain Crossing in Neel Gap and walk a little further to camp at the Bull Gap tent site.

The hikes and views were pretty similar to the previous days. We met up again with the same couple we met yesterday at Justice Creek. They’ve climbed AT, PCT, and CDT before, so they have plenty of experience.

They warned us about poison ivy, a plant that grows heavily on the sides of the trail and causes a nasty rash if you touch it. The next time we saw them they tried to show us an example, but there weren’t any at that particular location. The time after that, they asked us if we had seen any yet, and we did. We jokingly told them that if they didn’t already have trail names, they should be called Poison and Ivy, which gave them a good laugh. Anyway, we appreciate the advice. And if you’re curious, this is what poison ivy looks like:

A little further along we saw our first deer! He ran onto the trail, stopped, looked us in the eyes for a second, and ran away just as quickly.

Up and over Blood Mountain

Blood Mountain was next: the somewhat infamous first mountain on the trail. The climb was long, but quite doable. We also saw a rabbit on the way!

The view from the top was amazing! And the Blood Mountain Shelter is a really cool building, too bad you can’t stay there without a bear canister.

View from Blood Mountain

Blood Mountain Shelter

The descent from Blood Mountain was a pretty tough rock scramble. I got a little ahead of my dad, because sometimes our pace is different. At some point I waited a little, but he didn’t come. He had mentioned before that he needed to go to the bathroom, so I assumed he was just digging a cat hole somewhere.

Mountain crossing at Neel Gap

So, I headed to Mountain Crossing, a popular resupply point and service provider on the Neel Gap route. Legend has it that a quarter of hikers abandon at Neel Gap and throw their shoes into the tree, so I was very glad to have made it this far.

mountain crossing

Shoes of the defeated

I felt like a kid in a candy store. They have almost everything you could want. In addition to the resupply, I also bought a new headlight. I have a power bank and a USB-C charger, but my old headlamp still had micro-USB, so I couldn’t charge it. I also purchased the relatively new CNOC Thru-Bottle as a replacement for my Smartwater bottle. I like that it’s a little sturdier and made to be used multiple times.

Manifesting

Half an hour later, my dad came in too. He had gotten lost while coming down from Blood Mountain. This was quite a stressful time for him, but he found his way. I gave him a quick refresher course on the FarOut app so this doesn’t happen again. He also bought a CNOC water bag, so we can filter twice as fast.

We also weighed our bags with a full resupply and 2 liters of water. Mine weighed about 31 pounds; My dad had 38 pounds in his backpack. It’s nowhere near ultralight, but I was quite happy with the weight of my backpack.

bear problems

This is where the «fun» began. A mile beyond Neel Gap is a tent site called Bull Gap. We did the usual: cook, relax, hang up our teddy bags and go to sleep.

I slept with earplugs because they block out noise. A little before midnight I woke up and took one out to readjust it. That’s when I heard a sound that I can only describe as a bulldozer going over some bushes. This was a bear, no doubt.

I’ve read about black bears and what to do when you encounter one, but all of that advice was about what to do if you encounter one, not when you’re in your tent in the middle of the night. I had no idea what to do.

I waited a bit to find out where the bear was going and quickly realized it was approaching our campsite. I didn’t do anything until he was about 60 feet from my tent.

After that the only thing I could think of was to wake up my dad. His store was right next to mine.

I called him calmly and there was no answer. I tried a little louder, but still no response. My dad is deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other. During the day he uses a hearing aid, but not at night.

I started screaming to wake him up, but nothing. I screamed as loud as I could and it finally worked. The bear turned around too, so I guess that helped.

We stayed awake for a while and talked to each other until we couldn’t hear any rustling anymore. We tried to sleep again, but I was full of adrenaline, so that’s easier said than done.

After a while we fell asleep again. But an hour later, I heard two more bears coming to camp. This time my dad used his hearing aid so he could wake him up easier. We talked again until the bears left and then they went back to sleep.

Until around 4am, when another bear came to camp, AGAIN! This time I wasn’t even scared anymore, just super upset. We talked again and he left.

We had taken proper precautions, such as cooking further away from our tents and storing all of our food and smells in a bear bag more than 100 feet away. But I guess we were just unlucky that night.

Luckily nothing bad happened. At least now we know that talking to each other (or to the bear if you’re alone) helps scare them away. We also know that black bear attacks are very, very rare, but try explaining the statistics to your primitive monkey brain. Not working.

I’m glad I wasn’t alone tonight, but we only got about two hours of sleep. I’m afraid tomorrow will be difficult.