SoCal hiker mauled by bear
Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 7:26 am
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html
I have hiked/mountain-biked this exact stretch of trail a whole bunch of times, and I know exactly the spot where he was attacked. In later years, before I left California, I often carried (illegally) a .45 in my daypack when hiking/mountain-biking/fishing in the San Gabriel mountains.......not so much because I was worried about bears, but because of (a) human predators that sometimes went up in the hills to party, and (b) numerous mountain lion sightings. At the time, there had been more than one report of mountain lions stalking of hikers, and one woman was killed by a lioness while out for a run on a nature trail. I had to give up a favored fishing spot when I found fresh gang graffiti on the rocks, and the obvious signs of a party on the ground around it - broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, and even a used diaper the last time I went to it. It was a surprise to me at the time that people looking for a place to get high, spray-paint their gang name on the rocks, and make a general mess would make so much effort to carry all their crap that far away from a paved road to do it.
Anyway, bears have been a minor but growing issue in SoCal, as the combined pressures of drought and real estate expansion into formerly secluded places have driven more and more animals into contact with humans. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if California didn't go to such lengths to disarm its serfs.
I have hiked/mountain-biked this exact stretch of trail a whole bunch of times, and I know exactly the spot where he was attacked. In later years, before I left California, I often carried (illegally) a .45 in my daypack when hiking/mountain-biking/fishing in the San Gabriel mountains.......not so much because I was worried about bears, but because of (a) human predators that sometimes went up in the hills to party, and (b) numerous mountain lion sightings. At the time, there had been more than one report of mountain lions stalking of hikers, and one woman was killed by a lioness while out for a run on a nature trail. I had to give up a favored fishing spot when I found fresh gang graffiti on the rocks, and the obvious signs of a party on the ground around it - broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, and even a used diaper the last time I went to it. It was a surprise to me at the time that people looking for a place to get high, spray-paint their gang name on the rocks, and make a general mess would make so much effort to carry all their crap that far away from a paved road to do it.
Anyway, bears have been a minor but growing issue in SoCal, as the combined pressures of drought and real estate expansion into formerly secluded places have driven more and more animals into contact with humans. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if California didn't go to such lengths to disarm its serfs.
