This is a humorous account I wrote for a friends off-road news letter. A bit long but I hope you like it.

Some years ago I went with some folk's on their first time offroading trip in Colorado. Now these folks had been off-roading in ORV parks and camping in state parks. One was a hunter who shot and killed wild game. The other had his girlfriend along. But they had never been off-roading in Colorado and wanted some one around who had been there before. One area I like to visit is St. Elmo, CO. It is an easy one day drive from my home in KS. It has levels of off-roading from easy to vehicle damage likely. There are plenty of old buildings, lots of history and amazing views. My favorite is from the top of Mt. Antero trail. On this trip the folks wanted to camp in a forest service campground. Most times I go up on Tin Cup Pass road above St. Elmo to camp. We ended up in the Iron City campground just outside St. Elmo. We found 2 empty campsites together and paid for both. I put my tent up near the parking area just a few feet from my truck. The others put tents up in designated level spots down a slope away from the dirt road through the campground. That evening we sat around the campfire and I was feeling the altitude and turned in early. The others stayed up talking and drinking adult beverages. Now have you ever forgotten about something? I did once back in 98. I had been camping in the mountains for about 3 years at that time but I forgot and left my ice chest outside the truck. I awoke at first light with raccoons helping themselves to my food. I ran them off and learned a cheap lesson. I still had most of my food and have never made that mistake again. Well it seems the hunter had forgotten his ice chest was on his car trailer about 50 feet from my tent. They all turned in and fell asleep. I awoke about 1:00 AM to the sound of wildlife in an ice chest. Now I knew my ice chest had been in the back of my truck. If wildlife had taken it out of my truck I was not going to argue with it. I rolled over to go back to sleep. Next thing I hear is a whispery voice calling my name. "Jack. Jack, are you awake". So I answered "Yup, I am now". So the voice tells me there is a bear out there. Now my first thought was to say "No kidding? We are camped in the Colorado mountains and there is a bear out there? Who would of guessed?" But I didn't. I just lacked the words to respond. So then I'm asked if I have a gun. "Sure, do you want it?" I ask. The voice replies his gun is in his truck and he did want one. So I dig out my 45 Long Colt revolver and hand it to him with a caution that I has lightened springs in it. Now that he is armed he starts to dance with the bear. So I get dressed and out of the tent to see what is going on. After about 20 minutes we are successful in getting the bear to go around our campsite. Now the hunter had deer jerky and special steaks and all kinds of good stuff in the ice chest. The bear had eaten it all. This bear was good. It had even pealed the Lunchables without shredding them. Now this had rattled my friend. And I soon found out why we had to dance with the bear and get him out of our campsite. My friend picked up the trash and empty ice chest and put them in his truck. Then he went to his tent and removed his sleeping bag and put it in his truck. That was where he slept the rest of this trip in the mountains, curled up next to his semi auto .22 long pistol. Now that bear visited our campsite every night. Seems he was a creature of habit and worked the campground from top to bottom. He really did not want to go around our campsite that first night. One night he rubbed my tent. The last day of the trip my hunter friend left for home. I stayed in the campground with my other friend and his girlfriend . When the bear visited again that night some other folks down the way from us were up dancing with the bear. I'm trying to ignore as much of it as I can and get back to sleep when another whispery voice outside my tent says, "Jack. Jack, are you awake". So I answer and am told the bear is back and others are dancing with it. I ask if my friend wants a gun. He says yes. So I give it to him and hope I can go back to sleep. The voice tells me the folks dancing with the bear that night had a bunch of guns and he was afraid they would shoot at the bear and hit him or his girlfriend in his tent. I told him to move to his truck and sleep in the back of it, if that made him feel safer. So they did. The other folks were still dancing with the bear. Seems the plan was to run the bear completely out of the campground. After my friend had
moved and was settled in his truck, the bear was shot with a flare gun. Now that could have started a forest fire and was not a real good idea. And it really made the bear mad. The bear came back up through the campground to just above our campsite. The bear had already emptied an ice chest up there. He would voice his displeasure at being shot with a flare gun and swat that ice chest sending it bouncing off trees. He repeated this a half dozen times. I finally got to sleep and the next morning we packed up to leave at our scheduled time. We noticed the folks below us had left during the night but a tent was left behind. That tent had belonged to a lady who had told us she was a native to Denver and knew all about camping. As we left we saw the other side of the tent was shredded. I would bet Mrs. Denver camper had put food in that tent.

I have another one. It even mentions this story in it. I can post it if anyone would care to read it. This type of thing has a small group of folks who primitive camp and travel so I understand if the humor is not seen as such.