Survival: Bear Attack On the Appalachian Trail

My dad’s fists slammed into the thick animal, but the bear wouldn’t leave.

- David Stephen Wingfield

2:05 a.m. Dismal Falls, Virginia. My dad woke to the sound of something rustling against the tent. Something big. It’s a bear. Time slowed. My dad thought about life, his wife, and his son who slept beside him and who might die with him on this lonesome night at Dismal Falls. My dad is a man of action.

“Hey!” he screamed. “Get out!”

He rolled onto his side and started punching the bear though the wall of the tent. His fists slammed into the thick animal, but the bear wouldn’t leave. I yelled, “Dad!” and his son’s voice gave him a surge of paternal strength. He gave the bear everything he had. “Git!” he shouted. “Get out of here!”

Earlier that day

It was summer and my Dad and I were on our annual section hike of the Appalachian Trail. One of my co-workers, Kyle*, joined us.

Our plan was to camp at the Dismal Falls campground. It was an arbitrary destination for us, but one with a grim history: A few years back, a crazy person shot two hikers who were staying there, wounding them. (The guy was subsequently caught and went to jail.)

When you’re hiking in the woods with family and friends you try not to think about that sort of thing, but sometimes it’s hard to think about anything else. I asked Kyle, “Remember that guy who shot those people at Dismal?”

“The Dismal Falls we’re hiking to?”

“They were just wounded,” my dad interjected.

We walked on in a heavy silence of three men waiting for the gallows. The mood was dark indeed by the time we arrived at Dismal Falls.