I woke up at 1:00am to a rustling sound by my tent my first night in the smokies. Looked out my tent to see a bear about 15 feet away. Fell asleep just fine after I scared him with an abrupt yell. The next morning when I woke up I mentioned the bear to someone else and they asked if I took anything. I said no without even thinking about it. About 5 minutes later it hit me… Where’s my backpack? Well, a bear dragged it 100 yards into the woods and destroyed it and most of the contents. The funny thing is I had a bottle of honey I forgot about inside and he left that untouched! I called park rangers and they recommended I walk back 14 miles from where I was at Russell field shelter. I thought about it and as a thru hiker that’s just ridiculous, I gotta get to Maine! Anyway, I salvaged what I could and made some makeshift repairs enough to carry my pack the next 21 miles to Clingmans. I ended up walking that in 1 day and into the night with a few friends. We got to Clingmans at 1 am and decided to pitch my tent up top of the tower and wait for the sun to rise. With spirits high and hot oatmeal going around we were in heaven. After sunrise we took a nap and woke up to tourists walking next to us and laughing. I met two women from Wisconsin that offered us a ride into Gatlinburg. Us 3 hikers packed into the backseat of a Honda civic with gear on our laps and here we are now in Gatlinburg. Oh yea, the day before my stuff got eaten we got a ride from a souped up mini cooper on the dragons back and to the shelter as there was a mini cooper rally that day. Life is good. Machine gun out.