The youngest camper was Erik, a six-month old. He didn’t fuss or cry, and he received constant attention from his parents, Mary and Julio.
After dinner on Friday night, we sat around the campfire exchanging jokes. The stars twinkled through the trees, and I warned everyone to remove all food and anything that could be mistaken for food from their tents. We’ve seen raccoons, deer and bears in this park.
On Saturday morning, two people went bicycle-riding in the Lehigh Valley Gorge. Most of the rest of us walked to Mud Run and dangled our feet in its swift-running, cold waters. Only two of us actually waded in.
When we returned to the campsite for lunch, more people had arrived. Some of them went to Sand Spring Lake to go swimming, and others hiked to Hawk Falls. I arranged with Denise that I would hike to Boulder Field and she would drive there to pick me up. She arrived with her boyfriend Pablo about half an hour after I arrived. She said she was low on gas, so we drove to Albrightsville so she could fill up and buy some groceries. Gasoline prices were higher than we had ever seen, but we had no choice but to buy.
We returned to the campsite, cooked our dinners and built a campfire. There was lots of wood lying around, the remnants of an ice storm from the winter. Robert, an experienced camper on his first trip with us, tended the fire. When the fire was blazing, Robert pulled out a notebook of his poetry and read to us. After most people had gone to sleep, I played a few games of chess with David G and Robert.
On Sunday, a number of people walked to Hawk Falls and then Boulder Field. I had agreed to drive to Boulder Field in the late afternoon to pick up anyone who wanted a ride home. I spent the early afternoon with Pablo relaxing at Mud Run, and then I drove to Boulder Field. With my binoculars, I saw Denise, Ken and David G at the other end of the Field. I climbed over the boulders to reach them. Ken and David G wanted to hike back, and Denise wanted a ride. So I drove her to the Hawk Falls trailhead where she hiked in to meet Pablo.
When I returned to the campsite, I heard the banging of pots and pans. A bear had invaded our site! I honked the horn of my car, and then grabbed my tea kettle and began banging the lid against the kettle. The bear had dragged a garbage bag from a picnic table to the back of site near our tents, but retreated from the noise we made. It was a young male, perhaps a yearling searching for a territory. A few minutes after it left our site, we heard yells and then the banging of pots and pans from a neighboring site.
Chet and I cleaned up the broken garbage bag. I sawed up some wood for the evening’s campfire and then drove to the Hawk Falls trailhead to pick up Denise and Pablo. As we returned to group site I, we passed the bear "terrorizing" yet another campsite. We stopped and Pablo snapped a couple of pictures. I honked my car’s horn as people yelled, blew whistles and banged pots and pans.
David G and Ken returned from their hike and were very disappointed that they had missed the bear. At first they didn’t believe us, but there were too many witnesses. After dinner, I felt very tired and went to sleep early.
Around 6 AM, I was answering the call of nature when I heard Robert yell, "Get out of here!" Then I heard banging and I knew that our unwelcome visitor was back. Still tired, I decided that I would rather sleep some more.
Robert, however, couldn’t go back to sleep. Instead, he wrote a couple of poems to celebrate his encounter with the bear. He read the poems after breakfast as we were packing up. We all left a few hours later.
Thanks to David G and Hollis for leading the trip. The total cost per person per night was $3!
David Levner
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