After completing a long trail building session, I returned to see something out of place the next day.

I was hiking in to scout a future trail, bushwacking my way back down to the general location of the end of the trail. Typically, you wouldn’t see the trail-barrow of tools until you got within 30-40 yards due to it being wrapped tightly in the camouflage tarp. However, things were different this morning. I was on top of a cliff, about 200 yards out, and the yellow top of the tool bin caught my eye. Instantly, I knew something wasn’t right.

My first thought was a trespasser had come upon it and stolen our tools. However, as I closed in on it, I noticed the tools were lying about, and nothing was missing. My next thought was “the bear,” which was confirmed when I saw his fresh tracks on the trail that I had cut not 12 hours earlier.

I’m not sure what his plan was that that night, but my neighbor reported seeing him on camera (as seen in the above feature photo). In addition to ransacking our tools, the bear destroyed my neighbor’s deer feeder, and, not moments after that photo of him was taken, he went over to the trail camera and tore it off the tree. He was in a mood that night for sure.