The weekend bear hunt had finally arrived. One of the guys from Wilderness Athlete met up with me on Friday night and we loaded our gear into the truck in preparation for the 2 hour drive and then 2+ hour hike we would have the next day. At 3am we were in the truck driving on our quest for black bear. The county we would be hunting in is home of the NYS record black bear. We had seen the animal mounted at the local Gander Mountain and it is a bear I would not want to run into without a gun in hand. This thing looked more like a grizzly than a black bear!

After passing countless deer on the ride over, including a nice 8 pointer, we arrived at the parking area on the 5,000 acre parcel of state land. To our pleasant surprise there were no other hunters joining us on this day. With our treestands on our backs and our day packs attached to the stands, we began our strenuous hike into the bush. It had rained hard earlier in the morning so everything was wet, including the two of us, and the unseasonably warm weather made this a not so pleasant hike. All the creeks were gushing with water emptying into the now treacherous river below. The hike was like a cruel rollercoaster with never ending ups and deathly downs. Rarely was there a section of the trail that was level and mostly dirt instead of the uneven rocky ground. After an hour on the trail, the trail became a one lane foot path looking more like a sparsely used game trail rather than a “hiking trail”. It was at this point that we saw two eyes light up ahead of us. Not knowing what exactly we were staring at we shined the lights at the animal and soon realized it was a deer. We continued on up the mountain taking breaks to give our screaming shoulders a break. Soon we reached the peak of the mountain and were ready for our descent down to our hunting area. Day began to break and at first light we found ourselves still in search of trees to climb.

My hunting buddy chose a stand overlooking the trail after coming across some bear scat. I told him I’d go about 200+ yards further down the trail and set up there. Little did I remember that over the next 200 yards the trail disappeared and was engulfed with mountain laurel and the thickest of shrubbery. I tried to descend down the steep, slippery hillside to the flat shoreline below where the now overflowing river was flowing. Pushing through the brush I was now completely drenched and had to climb back up the hillside to find the ridge line once again. I came upon a more faint trail than what I knew was another 100 yards or so ahead, but with the time approaching 8am and my legs and shoulders hating me for pushing them since 5:30am I figured here would be as good as any a spot to wait for a bear. I climbed the best tree I could find in the surrounding area which would give me a 20 yard shot to the game trail. I climbed up and waited anxiously for bear to arrive.

A few hours later I was climbing down the tree without seeing so much as a squirrel. I made my way back towards my hunting buddy and found out he too, had seen nothing. We sat down for a few to have some lunch and then continued hiking to see if we could find a better location for an afternoon hunt. With no such luck, we decided to hunt a spot half way between where we were and where the truck was – this was the best idea we had all day. We hunted a ridge line with three streams trickling down the side of it, hoping to find a deer or bear coming down to feed on the lush greens below. After about 20 minutes in the stand the skies began to darken and cold drops of rain fell from the sky. I began shivering a bit as the rain soaked through my clothing (this was not in the forecast and the reason why I did not bring my rain gear). The rain finally subsided and for the next two and a half hours I sat on my perch over looking the leaves fall from the trees. Darkness soon followed and I climbed down from my stand and headed back towards the trail to meet my hunting buddy for the one hour hike we had back out to the truck in the dark.

This was the start of a very strenuous adventure…