From KQED.

I'm Katrina Schwartz, filling in for Olivia Allen Price, and you're listening to Bay Curious.

Okay, so I think I should start the story with noting that I have a very, what I would consider, healthy fear of bears.

This is Nick Oge, my husband.

And this story starts on a backpacking trip we went on

in Lassen National Park a couple years ago. And we are camping on a peninsula next to a lake,

where unfortunately there are not a lot of tall trees for us to string our backpacks up into.

At the time, Lassen didn't require bear canisters, but recommended

bear bagging, which we tried to do, I swear. At about 4.30 in the morning, I hear the unmistakable

sound of a large animal gnawing on something relatively nearby. And I unzip our tent and look outside and where our bags were,

there are no bags. And instead I see on the ground a large bear rummaging through and clearly

eating our food. I wake up to Nick shaking me and saying in a whisper, there's a bear out there

eating our food. That's when I remembered that I'd up to Nick shaking me and saying in a whisper, there's a bear out there eating our food.

That's when I remembered that I'd forgotten to take a cliff bar out of my jacket pocket.

What if the bear smelled it and came searching for us?

Nick was, shall we say, not pleased with me.

So I get out of the tent and I start just making as much noise as I can.

And the bear is probably 100 feet away.

And the bear does not respond to my noises.

So I get the sleeping pad out from the tent and start shaking it above my head and continue

to make loud noises at the bear, which they continue to ignore.

Nick keeps getting closer to the bear, yelling and waving the pat above his head like a maniac.

...