The ultimate black bear encounter took place when I took my wife for the very first time to the ADK high peaks on Labor Day in 2007. The drive from Old Forge, NY to ADK Loj was longer by 40 minutes than we had anticipated. We parked at South Meadows Road and had a lovely walk to Marcy Dam. However, when we got there it was already dusk. We didn't stop anywhere for dinner, thinking we will make it into Marcy Dam a lot sooner. Nevertheless, when we located an unoccupied lean-to on the western side of the dam, it was getting dark fast. Without much thought we prepared dinner not far from our lean-to. We ate a quick dinner, washed our utensils, and packed our remaining food into a bear resistant canister. I then brought the canister far enough from the lean-to and wedged it between two pine trees. After dinner we settled in and got ready for bed. And thats when all the excitement began. No sooner did I turn off the flashlight when I heard a faint rustling outside. Without hesitation, I quickly turned on the light and there at the foot of our lean-to was a huge bear peering inside. The face was literally 3 feet away from our feet under the sleeping bag. This would have been enough.
I began to yell "get out" as loud as I could. I instructed my wife to do the same, but she could barely speak out of fear. We happened to have two spare tent pegs laying nearby and I told my wife to start hitting them together to make some kind of noise. I then proceeded to look out of the lean-to, praying that bear had run away. By then I was standing outside and quickly scanning nearby bushes and trees for the bear. After a quick scan I located the bear about 50 feet behind and to the right of the lean-to. After continuing to yell at the bear, the bear just stood there. At the same time I also heard a scarping sound in the trees above. So I began searching the trees nearby with a flashlight. About 10 feet to the right of the lean-to was a pine tree and sitting in it were 3 bear cubs. It dawned on me that the reason the big mother bear wasn't going anywhere was because I was standing right beneath the tree where her cubs were hiding. I immediately jumped back into the lean-to and stayed quite so that the cubs would come down. It felt like eternity but we finally heard them slide down and run away.
Like that wasn't enough, the bears kept coming back the whole night. From time to time we would hear a rustling in the bushes nearby, I would start yelling "get out of here," my wife would hit the two tent pegs together and the noise would diminish. We had this routine going for the remainder of the night.
At some point we heard some really loud thrashing noises and yelling across the dam. Interestingly enough we had meet a newly-wed couple across the dam while searching for a lean-to who had just begun their honeymoon in the wilderness.
It felt like the morning would never come. The morning light was very welcoming. Although we were very exhausted, we still managed to hike Mt Phelps. We stayed at the summit for 2 hours and most of that time was spent napping on the warm rocks and no bears lurking around.
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