I swear I saw God in those bear’s eyes by Eli Fry

3700’ Trail restoration
Well as usual, this hitch was filled with bear stories! Well, really just one, but it’s pretty awesome. The week started off smoothly, continuing on the other side of Peter’s Run Ridge Trail. On Thursday we sat down to lunch about 100’ downhill from our water. After enjoying a few bites, I looked up and yelled, “Bear… Big, Black, Bear… with something in its mouth!”
The bear was standing next to our water with Chris’ coffee mug in its mouth. Thi and Chris scared it off; we finished lunch and headed back to work. Not 30 minutes later Thi walked to the water and yelled “The bear is back!” This time it had gone right for the food. ( We keep all of our food in bear safe canisters.) It took the bear bin up the hill and then dropped it an walked closer to us staying on top of the hillside. Marguerite quickly decided to pack up for the day as the bear followed us on our intial move to collect our gear. Following the trail as an amoeba, we were able to quickly collect out water bottles, find the stolen bear bin and head out.
The next day we were relocated to a new site; a 30 minute drive away and safe from our bear friend. Our new site is very beautiful with more active and less aggressive wildlife. In little over half a hitch we were able to complete 3700’ of trail restoration. We were also given quite the treat on our last day when we were taken out for Chinese by our local forest service contacts, Yvonne and Sharon. Even with the issues we faced this turned out to be a great hitch, with an awesome story to tell.