High Sierra Topix

"He sustained ... a pretty good bear attack,"

I did not know that there was such a thing as a pretty good bear attack.

My go to morning hiking trail is literally on the other side of the hill from here. I've seen bears plenty of times while going up and down in this area. Every time they have either bolted as soon as they saw me or once I went to the "hey bear" yell and whacked my hiking pole on a nearby rock or tree to make noise.

Last year there were a couple of juvi bears that I saw here and there. I have a feeling that one of these juvi bears was still sticking close to momma this year and when the guy came upon the juvi bear it got freaked out and momma bear just so happened to be out of sight on the other side of the trail. This put the hiker in the precarious position of being between momma and offspring, which we know can go south really quick.

Here's a map of the area. Where the red track ends is approximately where George's Cabin is IIRC. I've only hiked that leg a couple of times because it has a whole ton of switchbacks and is generally unpleasant to climb. The green track is my usual out and back morning hike/run on the other side of the hill..


I'm usually up there starting at 5:00 am, so currently its just starting to get light by the time I get back to my car by around 6:40. Front country day hikers usually leave garbage around a few popular places like George's Cabin and First Water which doesn't help the situation at all. I try to avoid trash day in the area as well as the bears will come down out of the hills to ransack garbage cans during the night and they like to take the same trails we like to hike back up into the hills. Not rare to see bear tracks in the dirt first thing in the morning on trash day.

Thanks for posting the map of the area.

I had a run in with a bear at Hoegees Campground last year, where he tried to get some trail mix on a table 12 feet away from the table we were at eating dinner. A few months later a bear chewed on a smartwater bottle and freezer bag cozy there. Bearcan goes with me on every trip.

robow8 wrote:I had a run in with a bear at Hoegees Campground last year, where he tried to get some trail mix on a table 12 feet away from the table we were at eating dinner. A few months later a bear chewed on a smartwater bottle and freezer bag cozy there. Bearcan goes with me on every trip.

With all the bear activity in that area you would think they would put bear lockers at Hogees and Spruce Grove. I saw the remnants of a cooler that a bear had taken off with and dispatched a short way down the trail from Hogees last year.

or maybe open hunting in the area? seems to work out well in Trinity. Maybe they do.. dunno.

or maybe open hunting in the area? seems to work out well in Trinity. Maybe they do.. dunno.

They do. http://www.fs.usda.gov/activity/angeles ... on/hunting

That is very strange wording for hunting. Bow hunting would be obvious, but it's not obvious. It's ok.. I don't hunt there.

psykokid wrote:

robow8 wrote:I had a run in with a bear at Hoegees Campground last year, where he tried to get some trail mix on a table 12 feet away from the table we were at eating dinner. A few months later a bear chewed on a smartwater bottle and freezer bag cozy there. Bearcan goes with me on every trip.

With all the bear activity in that area you would think they would put bear lockers at Hogees and Spruce Grove. I saw the remnants of a cooler that a bear had taken off with and dispatched a short way down the trail from Hogees last year.

I've thought that too, but with all the trash I pack out of that place, I'd hate to see how much there would be if they had lockers.

When I first started going to Hoegees in the 80s, they had trash cans. And raccoons.