Bears + How to Sleep Comfortably in a Loaded Chevy Aveo

Marty packing up shortly after a bear cub pawed our tent.

It's morning and Kelly and I are laying in our tent.  We're camped just off the highway south of Anchorage, AK.  We're thinking about starting the day when Kelly hears a light rustle in the grass.  I don't hear it... but all of a sudden we see our tent wall caving in with the indentation of a paw print!  I jump up and immediately yell, "Hey!  Hey!" as I pull a knife out from the top of our tent.  There's a quick instant where I think I may have to wrestle a bear off our tent with a tiny knife...  Our tent pops back into shape and Kelly looks out the window of our rain fly and sees a black figure running off in the grass.

We stay still.  We listen.

We hear a few nearby campers who were sleeping in their trucks get out and yell, "Hey!  Is anyone in the tent?"  "Yes..."  "Well a black bear mother and 3 cubs were just surrounding your car and tent..."  We get out of our tent.  "Ya, we kinda figured that..."  The guy looks at us like we're crazy, "And your okay with that?"  Well no, we're not totally okay with this... but what else are we suppose to do?  Run back after them and say, "Hey bears!  That wasn't cool, alright?  You could have ripped our new tent!"  We certainly didn't invite them over for morning tea and they already scurried off... so the only thing left to do was pack up and move on.

I think the problem was that we pitched our tent too close to the grass where there was a nearby trail.  The black bears were just passing through, our tent was kinda in the way, and the bear cub was a little curious.  Black bears are usually pretty timid- at least from our experiences.  When I did yell, the bear cub and friends scurried off quickly minding their own business.

So after almost receiving a cozy bear hug that morning... we were both a bit timid the next few nights.  Kelly later invented a great and comfortable way to sleep in our over-packed Chevy Aveo- check the video below.  We eventually started sleeping in our tent again, but this was also a great way to sleep in crowded areas such as suburbs or cities where pitching a tent may not be feasible.

Here's the video: