I lay perfectly still in my tent as lightning illuminated our little campsite and the surrounding forest. The crunching and thrashing and crashing hadn’t stopped for over an hour since I’d heard the ugly claws climbing the tree towards a midnight snack. There were three of us hiking together: my friends Josh Cannon and Price Jackson along with another group of three that had walked into the shelf, a nifty camping spot, later that evening.

I should have known it was going to happen. Warning signs, literally, abounded the trail before the ascension of Blood Mountain (if my facts are accurate, a violent battle between the Cherokee and Creek Indians spilled so much blood on the ground, making it appear as if it was running off the mountain). “Problem bears, please take detour trail and do not enter Blood Mountain.”

Bears! Plural! And we still did not heed the warning. There was a date and time on the sign, which had been posted that morning. Surely park rangers had taken care of the threat by evening.

But as I lay in my tent, sure that the next flash of lightning would silhouette a bear-like figure standing outside, I couldn’t help but question that rash decision. It had been a pleasant enough evening and the trail had been nice, even though we were climbing the tallest mountain on the Appalachian Trail in the state of Georgia. The shelf where we set up cast a perfect view to the west so we sat back against our packs and watched the world fade to black.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times: as far as vacations are concerned, hiking the AT has always been my favorite way to spend a few days, weeks, or months, whatever time allows. Imagine not having to worry about more than where you’ll find the next water source, or where you might camp that night (some simply plop down wherever the urge arises). Imagine walking into a fine lunching spot, dropping your pack, extracting a good book, and just laying in the dirt, reading a page or two, then watching the clouds go by. There’s rarely an engine within earshot. The few people you do meet are usually out there for the same reason—to live easily and naturally, and merely escape an overloaded job or horrible lover for a while. Life, you know.

Of course, none of those quiet thoughts caressed my brain as the licking and crunching and belly rumbles continued. Mind you, this was my first encounter with bears. Just after dark they’d circled our camp a few times before finding our food pack hanging about 50 feet up in an oak tree. Fifty feet is plenty high enough, but an important lesson we learned that day is to make sure it’s far enough out on the limb, away from the tree, where a bear cannot reach. We clapped and yelled at the first hearing, but they were determined. Price hardly said a word. This guy is an experienced hiker—from coast to coast—and I just thought he knew better than to get worked up over a few black bears. The other three hikers had dogs that barked and growled, but again, their effort was useless.

We’d find out the next morning that A) Price was in fact nearly frozen by fright, which upon hearing this, the rest of us began clearing our throats and toeing the dirt, suddenly conscious that we’d all been flirting with that state, but couldn’t find the gall to admit to it; and B) Leon, one of the dogs, actually ran off into the woods towards the bears and didn’t come back for several minutes. We laughed that he probably shared in the bears’ bounty.

Hungry but relieved, we walked on the next morning with bellies full of coffee. There was a store at Neel Gap, just a few miles distant, where we’d restock and plod on.

“Why are your bags shredded like this?” asked the storeowner, starting a foray of questions from other hikers within earshot.

“Bears,” we mumbled.

“Scared the shit out of me!” Cannon said, never one to mince his thoughts and words.

“Ah, hell,” said the storeowner, his kilt flapping in the breeze coming through the open front door, “them ol’ black bears ain’t nothin’ but big raccoons.”

The store was completely silent for a moment, other hikers listening intently to a conversation that concerned them little but affected their psyches aplenty. Not one to ever take anything off anybody, Cannon looked up from retying his boots, found the storeowners two lily-livered eyes, and calmly replied, “Yeah, raccoons that could rip your face off.”

Laughter erupted and the tension went out as quickly as it came in. The storeowner bent back to his work helping a customer, chuckling; his kilt bearing up uncomfortably close for anyone waiting to ask a question. By the time we walked out of Great Smoky Mountain National Park several days later, the rumor of our run-in with the bears had spread. Except it wasn’t about a few “oversized raccoons” that stole some hikers’ food. No, the bears had evolved. According to the improved lore, the bears had chewed through steel cables to bring the sack crashing to the forest floor. Thinking back, we never did much to correct it, just let it ride easy, easy like the ways of the AT.

Images courtesy Josh Wolfe