Dale Says

Sam was asleep when he first felt pressure on the side of his tent. He was exhausted from the day’s 20-mile hike and was sleeping soundly. At first he thought it was his dog trying to get in the tent, but as he awoke he remembered his dog hadn’t joined him on the hike. He shook himself awake and looked around. The moon cast a silhouette against the tent and outlined in the shadow was the profile of a bear!

Sam gathered his wits and lay perfectly still, hoping the bear would go away. But it continued to paw at the tent, trying to see what was inside. It swiped at the tent wall and hit Sam in the face, giving him a bloody nose.

Sam remembered having heard or read that one way to discourage bears was to play dead, so he curled into a fetal position and lay perfectly still. The bear continued to swipe at the tent, and the claws of one paw tore through the side of the tent and into Sam’s sleeping bag, leaving bloody scratch marks on Sam’s back. The bear poked its head through the tent and tried to get a grip on Sam’s neck with its jaw.

At that point, Sam realized he was in serious trouble. He was in a vulnerable position, with his back and neck exposed to the bear. He remembered his dog playing with stuffed animals, grabbing them by the neck and shaking them back and forth to “immobilize” them; Sam pictured the bear doing that to him and realized he had to do something. He gathered all his courage, leapt to his feet, made himself appear as large as possible, and screamed at the bear. “Go away!” he shouted, over and over, “Go away!”

The bear, caught unaware, was startled; it hadn’t expected a response. It grunted, backed away from the tent, and ran about 20 yards away into the trees beside the trail.

Sam remembers being astonished at how quick and strong the bear was; it jumped off his tent, ran 20 yards, and was in the trees looking at him by the time Sam got up to unzip his tent and look out.

Once outside his tent, Sam got his first good look at the bear. From the color and size, he estimated it was a medium-sized black bear, around 250 pounds, possibly a teenager. After a little shuffling near the trees, the bear made another run at Sam, running toward him on all fours. Sam considered trying to escape, but decided against it; he knew that bears are fast, are excellent at tracking their prey, and can climb trees. There was no where to go! So he did the only thing left to him – he shouted at the bear again. “Go away!” he yelled. “Get out of here!” Over and over he screamed at the bear, as loud as he could.

The bear, startled at this raucous creature, retreated into the trees.
Sam took inventory of his condition. He was bleeding from the nose and back, but in the dark he couldn’t tell how badly. His tent was torn and partially down. His sleeping bag was ripped where the bear had clawed through to get at him. And he was alone in the dark. He looked at his watch. It was 4:15 a.m., which meant the sun wouldn’t be up for another hour, and it wasn’t safe for him to hike in the dark. So he sat down, took out his tape recorder, switched it on, and began talking. He described the attack and said goodbye to his mother and friends, just in case. He was nervous that the bear (or its mother) might come back and finish him off.

Finally, daylight broke, and Sam gathered his things and headed down the trail, toward where he was to meet his mother, who was bringing supplies. He walked very quickly, trying to put as much distance between him and the bear as possible. As he saw his mother’s car come into view he finally relaxed, for the first time in hours. He was going to make it!

His mother gave Sam a huge hug when he arrived at her car and asked him how his hike had gone. “Great!” he replied, “Except I was attacked by a bear!”

“Yeah, right,” his mother said.

“No, really!” Sam told her, and he showed her his torn shirt and the scratch marks on his back.

Sam and his mother found a Park Ranger and told him about the bear. He told Sam he had done everything exactly right, and that he had been lucky. He would let everyone know there was a bear coming into camps, and put out an alert.

Note: In July of 2008, 16-year-old Sam McClure became the youngest person to solo thru-hike the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT), completing the 165-mile journey around Lake Tahoe in ten days. Sam, a curly-headed blond teenager from Menlo Park, California, trained hard for the hike and persevered through several obstacles that included hiking off course, developing severe foot blisters, and sleepless nights caused by an inadequate tent and insect bites. The TRT is an ordeal for anyone and the route, which encompasses the mountain ridges of the Lake Tahoe Basin and crosses six counties and two states, has special challenges for a teenage boy hiking it by himself