Teenager pulled from hammock by bear in Smokies

Dang… Stay safe out there!

According to the news reports this attack happened at campsite number 84 on Hazel Creek. I was backpacking with my boys about 3 weeks ago and we actually stayed in that very campsite. I distinctly remember it was located at a trail junction and seem to have a bit of impact from horse campers, including a bag of garbage hanging from the bear cables….in retrospect, not a good sign. Also of note, according to the rangers, this father and son pair had all of their food and packs properly suspended on the cables and were seemingly doing everything correctly.

Yep, it seems they did everything right in regards to food. The park staff is considering that this bear is also the one causing problems at Derrick Knob shelter so it's most likely very familiar with humans and knows we carry delicious food. With 20,000 black bears in the NC and TN portions of the Appalachians and 20M tourists, it's a wonder there aren't more incidents.

Ryan

I think it is surprising so few people are attacked by bears. Presumably it's because our perceptions don't match reality somehow.

The local news stations interviewed the father of the kid who was pulled from his hammock…apparently the father attacked back and punched the bear and was able to separate the two.

A few days later, the park service captured the suspected culprit bear and euthanized him, taking DNA samples to compare against samples taken from the campsite after the attack. If conclusively proved to be the same bear, the trails around the area will be reopened in a few weeks.

Yeah I had issues with bears in that exact same area last year as well. In 2 of the 3 incidents (same week), I found a sad amount of trash left over from weekend campers. The watch tower near there has an old well, that had a full trashbag's worth of fresh styrofoam boxes at the bottom. The Ridge runner at Mollies told me he'd already had to clean out that well a couple times. I also found bears eating oatmeal wrappers at the primitive campsites. I did NOT stay at my permitted site that night because of the visible bears interested in trash. The ridge runner I encountered later, encouraged me and said, "oh they're probably gone now. You should head back". I responded no thanks budd, I'm fine breaking permit(keep hiking) if the campsite is actually unsafe."

Campsites away from fontana dam had much less aggressive bear activity. Though still had some reports where people made food easy.

I understand bear encounters happen everywhere. But I've been really fortunate to not find issues with trash like that in other parks, and I've likewise found the bears alot less interested in me.

If GSMNP wants to fix the issue, I think more frequent patrols between Fontana and mollies would really help (10 miles roundtrip). Just a visible prescense would help and a friendly: "Hey folks, how's it goin. Where ya stayin? Oh we'd like to ask you to kindly double check your campsite for trash when you leave, we've had a problem with bears in this area." As it stands, it appeared to me like the park service was really pushing a lot on the ridge runners.

Lastly, it would scare the pee&poo out of me if a bear grabbed me out of a hammock.