Tossed

Saturday, we hiked over the bay to retrieve some things from our car. When we came down the slope to the head of the trail, we found our boot tote opened and overturned. Our collection of boots lay scattered over the trail. Something, most likely a bear, had tossed our cache!

I kayaked across to the road to pick up Michelle’s kayak, which we’d stashed there for her to use coming home from work on high tides. While I did this, Michelle met and talked to one of our neighbors. He told her that a bear had tossed some of the neighborhood vehicles. It broke out one of the side windows of his truck’s cabover, and had shredded his hip waders. It broke into another car parked on the side of the road.

We found ours undisturbed—amazing, since all of the groceries Michelle had brought home had been sitting inside of it since Thursday nigtht! Mostly canned and dry goods, it didn’t arouse the bear’s curiosity. But then, what was there in our neighbor’s truck that prompted the break-in?

Considering that it was a bear, we lucked out at the trailhead. The rubber tote hadn’t been punctured, nor had any of our boots been shredded or mauled. Bears can get playful, and that generally leads to destruction.

We’ve had bears raid the cars before this (see Smash ‘n’ Grab Alaska Style). At this season, when bears will soon start denning up for winter, this will hopefully be a last hurrah. Even so, when we got back home, we pulled the last of our garden’s carrots, a prime attraction for bears this year. We’ll all rest a little easier once the snow starts to fall.

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