Huachuca Mountains ; Rascal Bear

Rascal Bear

One fathers day a few years ago, I was camping in the Huachucas – Again – , It was hot and humid. I spent most of the day laying in my hammock listening to audio books I loaded onto my Mp3 player. In the evening, I decided to head down to the spring to wash up a bit.

Just after I finished up at the spring, I to notice a fairly large ( for the Huachucas) Black Bear (Ursus Americanus), sitting in the willows just a few paces away. His head was covered in pollen (maybe from grazing dandi lion flowers) and he was sniffing the air. Wow!, kinda cool…I had not brought my camera along so I ran up to my camp to get it in the hopes that “Yogi” would be there when I returned.

Camera in hand, I headed back to the spring in hopes of getting a few pics of this Bruin, Alas! he was gone, I did track him a bit and noticed that he headed up a side canyon which did – in a round a bout way – lead to my camp.

Knowing a bit about Bears, I realized that this rascal was heading to my camp to pillage my food supplies. I beat feet back up the trail to my camp and sure enough, there was “Yogi” with his muzzle buried in my food bag. He had chewed through the suspension rope and dropped the bag from the Apache pine I had secured it in. That was a savvy old bear.

Once, I got his attention with yelling and some rock throwing, I was able to drive him off and salvage most of my food stuffs. This old rascal, only chewed up a cabbage, some cucumbers and a bag of popcorn. Not too bad. This bear came back 2 more times before I was able to land a couple of decent rocks on his head and tail bone. Last seen “Yogi” was heading up the mountain at a fast pace, huffing and puffing all the way.

I salvaged the remainder of my foods, bundled it up, then hung it high in an Apache pine. All in all it was a pretty good experience and marks the 4th or 5th bear encounter I have had in those Mountains.

I also saw another Elegant Trogon….