Coffee For Bears

This must have been about 20 years ago, I went backpacking at Little Yosemite Valley with my friend Dave, and we brought our coffee in a small tin can along with our food and supplies. We left around noon and after a long day of hiking got into camp at upper valley at sunset, dealing with the cold and snow.

It was getting dark already, this way May, and there was snow cover on the ground. Dave’s job was to setup our tents and mine was to hang our food (you’d hang the food in nylon bags in the trees about 15 feet up and ten feet out, to discourage bears). So Dave setup the tents. I hung my food. Then my hands got so cold from the snowy weather they started to hurt and I decided I would just hang Dave’s bag in a pine tree. There shouldn’t be any bears when it’s this cold I thought.

At about 6 am I heard crying sounds of bears and there were the bears shuffling through Dave’s bag. They took the bag and dragged it along. We knew we had enough food supplies in my bag to last a few days but the coffee that we packed – our very favorite – was inside that tin can in Dave’s bag.

We were following the debris trail to see what we could salvage, when surprisingly! there was the coffee can, crushed by the bears’ teeth with the coffee in tact.

And we got to enjoy a great cup of coffee.