... Backpacking in the Catskills

Before I met Shannon and her family in Utah I got to go backpacking for a couple days in the Catskill Mountains of New York (again, this is the East Coast we're talking about. The mountains were small but they were quite a relief from the city). We did about 18 miles in the 2 days, "climbed" 3 "peaks", and had a very uninvited black bear show up in our campsite that night. We had just finished dinner and had luckily hung our bags before heading to the tent for the night. It was really dark by now, and being in the woods alone on that side of these mountains we must have heard every creaking tree and falling leaf. While my friend was on edge throughout the evening, I grew used to the noises, that is, until about 20 - 30 minutes later when I heard distinct heavy foot-steps coming toward our tent. My friend and I started yelling and screaming at whatever it was and I grabbed a flashlight to search around... from within the tent, of course. While still yelling at whatever it was (at this point it could just been an overweight chipmunk) my flashlight caught the reflection of the bear's eyes, and they were a lot higher off the ground than a chipmunk! We really started yelling at that point and, gratefully, it soon ran off. Since I saw it's eyes with my flashlight I knew it was close to the tent, but it wasn't until the next morning that I realized he was REALLY close; right under the tree from which we hung our bags about 40ft from our tent! Yeah, we should have hung our bags a little farther away.