About 100 miles west of where I lived in northern Virginia was a parking area in the Shenandoah National Park next to a trail leading up to an obscure area of the backcountry seldom visited. About six tenths of a mile up the trail there was an old, long abandoned fire road that went down a hollow and out of the park to the east. A mere two tenths of mile down this “road” now with twenty foot saplings growing right in the middle of it, was a flat, grassy area under the hardwood canopy that overlooked a small creek running along the bottom of the draw. I called it bear camp and doubt that anyone ever went back there but me – maybe a poucher? I saw a black bear three times working its way along the creek, I think the same one, a fairly young bear. Not sure what sex, never got that close.

Over many years when I needed mental health time once and a while I would grab my pack and head up there for a Saturday overnight or a holiday three night visit to bear camp. Set up tent on grassy road bed overlooking the little valley. Then I put down my sleeping pad and chill, stove next to me, bong, and usually do some serious bong hits. Ah, now that is relaxing. This was the perfect place to get totally wasted. Maybe brew up some tea and coffee. The bear would wander down the creek overturning rocks here and there always about an hour before sunset looking for big fat frogs, gartner snakes or crayfish. Everytime I saw it I felt a kind of ecstacy of sorts – wow, now I’m living, I would think. I took my wife once and she said it also and felt that thrill. Another time we sat eating our dinner while a big white tailed buck with his huge rack grazed literally five feet away in the soft evening light.

I sure hope that bear is still wandering down that creek flipping over rocks. It is a national park? It’s possible.