We all love camping, but for fucks sake let’s try to be intelligent campers! Did I really need to use a F-bomb in the first line of this blog? I did. Because Victor the resident Lake Mary black bear was uselessly killed last month. This whole incident could have been avoided if other campers could just not feed the bears. Victor the bear had his life ended uselessly because of the stupidity of mankind.
It’s not that fucking complicated.
As a lover of the outdoors and everything in nature, I have a soft spot in my heart for the wildlife that calls these mountains home. Here we are trying to recreate in their backyard. Humans treat their home like an actual toilet. We leave trash and feces all over this once beautiful state of California. We camp in the bear’s home, in the forest and we don’t have the common courtesy to ignore the bears, stay away from them and just put your food in a fucking bear box when camping. It’s not rocket science. It”s just a common courtesy. Victor, this majestic three-hundred-pound California black bear had his life cut short after, well multiple incidents with other campers. Like the bro who tried to take a selfie with him a few weeks back.
It all came to a head on the evening of August 21st when some campers were enjoying dinner outside practically after dark with a whole feast of food surrounding them. Victor the bear can smell a taco from a mile away. When Victor the bear entered their campground did they blow a bear whistle or set off a car alarm? No, they pulled out their iPhones and started a TikTok of wildlife in Mammoth. Lake Mary is a very bear-active area of Mammoth Lakes. The camp hosts tell you here to be bear-aware when you check-in.
How to not be an asshole while camping in bear country
- Do not leave food out.
- Do not bring too much food out in the evenings.
- Lock your car doors.
- Don’t even leave backpacks outside!
And for fuck sake, if you see a bear in your campsite, make the biggest noise you can. Whistle if you can. Back away to a safe distance. Don’t try to be the next Instagram sensation and stand next to the bear for a fucking selfie. Victor the bear didn’t have to die. But the stupidity of mankind handed him a death sentence.
When Victor the bear entered the campsite the family was in no hurry to give up their burgers and beers to him. One lady stood on a log near him and whipped out the latest iPhone to record the incident. He swiped her leg, requiring stitches and leaving his DNA behind. Victor had the munchies and she was too close. This led to his eventual euthanasia a few days later.
The day after this happened, yes I read all about it in the Mammoth Lakes local news. I also had a friend who was camped at Lake Mary at the time. As a lifelong camper and lover of the outdoors, she is highly bear-aware. She shared what these campers did wrong. And I have to say as a person who camps so many weeks a year, I see it just constantly.
This bear is definitely voting for Kamala
Just four days after Victor went over the Rainbow Bridge we were camping near Tahoe City and we watched a Dorito-loving bear go to town on a feast (Including a case of Modelas that these dumb-dumb Labor Day weekenders had left out for him. This bear seemed to love Doritos almost as much as Kamala Harris loves them, but still, artificial-flavored Doritos are not good for humans to digest, they are especially not great for wild animals to be inhaling!
This adolescent bear was tagged. Our camp hosts told us when we rolled into the scenic William Kent Campground on August twenty-ninth to be on the lookout for Big Red (As we named him) There are two bears that are extremely active in this area of northern Lake Tahoe and as responsible campers, our family respects their forest home. At our campsite, we always put our food in the bear box. We don’t leave food, sunscreen or even water bottles outdoors when we leave camp for the day. Our camp hosts told us the bears in this campground are so intelligent that mama bears will actually lift their babies on their shoulders so they can break into motorhomes. You bet your ass we locked all the windows in the motorhome every day after that when we left to hike at Maggi Peak!
How not to be that camper
On our last evening camping near Tahoe City, we had another ridiculous bear incident. This happened to be on a Friday night. Our campground had been so quiet and chill all week after the crowds left after the crazy Labor Day weekend. And then Friday happened. Bro’s in brand new pop-up trailers showed up and told me the bear-proof trashcans were broken. No bro, they just make them bear-proof (And also bro’s drinking White Claw’s at three a.m. proof) I kindly showed him how to use the bear-proof trash dumpsters. I also told him the bears are extremely active in this campground. Put down the White Claw and listen.
So obviously it was this guy on Friday evening whose campsite was first rampaged 
by a hungry four-hundred-pound male bear. I told the guy first thing, turn on your truck alarm. It will scare him away. But the bro obviously did not want to listen to the chick (Who camps ten percent of the year) in the gently-used thrift store booties. Instead, he yelled a little at the bear, stood way too close and the bear went to town on his ice chest.
This little incident was literally thirty minutes after our camp host drove through the campground and loudly told everyone “Bear in camp” Put everything away.
Country Bear Jamboree
Next thing we know country bear jambaree is rolling through the entire west end of the campground. Friday night at Lake Tahoe and every campsite is taken. As the bear is destroying the bro’s ice chest, in the campground next door, it’s almost dark at this point and a camper van rolls in, filled to the brim with small children under the age of ten reeking of fresh pizza. They start running amok all over the campsite with a bear in the darkness so close by. We went to tell them, literally, there is a bear over yonder. The parents made a good decision and loaded up the kids into the camper van and left for another campground.
But then there 
were the fisherman friends who were tent camping across the road from us. I don’t know how much food, beers and whatnot they had left out as the bear was rampaging through camp but I do know the bear was on top of their picnic table enjoying their dinner and possibly a cocktail or two.
Once again, this bro did not want to listen to me and turn his truck alarm on. The bear took one look at our campsite (Where we had already put everything food-related away, like a responsible camper would) I turned on my very loud Jeep alarm and he wandered passed us over to see what the fishing buddies across the way were having for dinner. None of this happened quietly! Anyone with any sense could tell there was a bear in the vicinity and put away your dogs and burgers! Put your ice chest in the bear box and get ready to make a commotion if the bear comes near you.
That’s when the other fishing buddy told me he was getting ready to discharge his weapon to scare the bear away. You can’t fix stupid. Seriously.
This little incident is how bears get socialized to us humans and eventually, they get put down. You can’t have a bear who is not afraid of people in a crowded campground with multiple little kids biking around and other hikers leaving a feast out for them.
- Don’t be a dick in bear country.
- But do a day hike to Dick’s Lake or Dick’s Peak! Is there anywhere better to skinny dick than Dick’s Lake?