I promise there is no exaggeration here.

This past weekend, I went camping in the Catskills. Alder Lake to be specific, right next to Balsam Lake Mountain Forest. This was primitive camping. No even campsites, no bathrooms, and no one really around. You had to carry in everything you needed. As we get to the area, we see a sign that warns of high bear activity. No problem, we thought, because we had planned to string up our food and trash in a tree anyways.

Well, stringing our food and trash up in a tree didn't quite work out. On the morning of our last day, I hear a massive crash at 5:45. I wake my boyfriend up next to me and we both look out of our tent. We don't see anything, and I see the glow sticks still hanging that we put on the rope for the food. We didn't come to a conclusion but we assumed that the food was still up because the rope was still up. A half-hour passes and I get up to go to the bathroom outside our tent and I see a black mass that I didn't recognize from before. I take one step closer and realize that a black bear is eating our food. That crash? It was the bear climbing up the tree and knocking down the food bag. Of course, like any good camper, I start yelling and alert the fellow campers that were with me. But before they were able to get out of their tents, I was able to fight off this bear. Check out the pictures below for the rest of the story.

Taylor Fought Off a Bear

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