In the fall of 2014 a friend suggested going up to the Tioga State Forest for the PA black bear season. The season starts on a Saturday and runs to the following Wednesday. This gives you 4 days of bear hunting in PA, with no hunting on Sundays. Their was 8 of us that first year, we all stayed in 2 small cabins on a campground and set out to hunt the first day, then head back home due to everyone’s work schedule. One of the members of our group was a friends’ dad John. John is a lifetime hunter who has often hunted black bear. He was never successful in his attempts to take one, so we thought it would be a good idea to make him a permanent stander for our drives. After a long 3 mile hike back a closed logging road we set up our drives and began pushing through thick patches atop the tall Appalachian plateau. We made it the 3 miles back to the trucks, not seeing a single bear sign the whole way.

At the beginning of our morning we ran into a large party of other hunters, the max drive size in PA is 25 hunters and they had that number maxed out. They started driving the top of the mountain on the west side while we started out on the east side. We could hear them driving behind us a considerable distance, they had a lot more area to cover. Once back at the trucks, we decided to drive out one other small patch to the east of the road. With hopes that we could push a bear to our standers, or the other party might kick something over to them from behind. As luck and good fortune would have it, a sow appeared a couple hundred yards behind our standers. Our drive was about 200 yards from the standers when we heard the shots ring out, 3 in total all in quick succession. All three shots struck her in the vitals, bears just seem to be stubborn about going down. John was finally successful in taking a sow, weighing in at about 180 pounds.

After the kill was over we had a long, about 1 mile hike back to the trucks. One of the guys cut up a small downed tree to use as a pole. We tied the front and back legs together and started off with teams of two holding the pole on our shoulders, swapping when people got tired. While simple and efficient, this method proved to be painful on the shoulders, and when the animal started swinging back and forth we had to stop because it was too much to hold.

That year was a great success and started a tradition for a group of friends from high school that would continue on for years and by far expand the reaches of the Pennsylvania black bear season. That first year, it was Nick that had suggested we go bear hunting, he had been up in that area quite a few times, either by himself or with only a couple of other people. They would typically find a spot and sit, hoping for a bear to pass by. He knew the best way to hunt bear in PA is by driving so he pitched the idea to us. The day before the opener Nick wanted to do a little scouting, obviously it was a little last minute with the season starting the next day, but we didn’t want to walk in blind so we stuck to some known trails in an attempt to figure out some places to drive out. Nick had a GPS, something most of us didn’t have or use at the time, their really was never a need. The idea was to walk out to where we would put standers, mark it on the GPS, then the next day give the GPS to the standers so they could easily figure out where to go to set up.

This was myself and Todd’s first trip to this area and it was some rough country, with steep valleys and over 1000′ elevation difference between the plateau tops and creek bottoms we were at the mercy of Nicks blistering pace through the woods. Nick is tall, slim, and fast in the woods. We set out on Friday morning after the over 4 hour drive from home to the hunting area to gather GPS way points. Nick wanted to show us a few areas he had in mind to drive out. We set out on a trail down the mountain to a creek bottom, turned north up the creek a few hundred yards and followed the public property line back up the mountain. Packed full with Pennsylvania mountain laurel the area looked amazing for bear, but would have been almost impossible for us to get anything bigger than a small cub out of. On the trek back we ran into a flock of about 40 Turkeys which is always exciting when you see game in the woods. We started up some really steep terrain, Todd taking 2 steps for every one of Nicks was already falling a little behind. We kicked a small group of whitetails up 3 doe and a small 4 point buck. The doe went south along the side of the mountain, the little buck started up the mountain and decided it was too steep for even him so he turned back around and headed back towards us. He passed us about 30 yards as if he knew we were too tired to even come close to being a threat to him. We made it to a flat spot and Nick told us the road was just ahead another 40 yards just past the knoll in front of us. We continued our trek, got to the knoll only to find no road in sight. He was clearly turned around a little bit, but we all knew he was going in the right direction. There was yet another small knoll, equally steep ahead of us. We got to the top of that one only to realize the road was below us by about 40 feet.

Now we’re all close friends, as close as brothers. We like to harass each other back and forth and this day was no different than any other. So of course we started ribbing on Nick, giving him hell about not knowing where he was. None of us really knew where we were either and we could have just as easily been put in that situation as he was. Our next stop was down the mountain on a logging road a couple of miles in the pickup. He showed us where he wanted to put drivers in, then drove about a mile down the road to where he thought would be a good place for the standers. We got out of the truck, he assured us it was a flat hike in a few hundred yards, we’d get a way point then we’d be done hiking for the day and go check in at the campground. He was right it was an easy hike in maybe 500 yards, we got in to where he wanted to take the way point. He pulls his GPS out only to find out the batteries are dead. Todd and I both lost it. This just exasperated the ribbing he was already getting for the death march he took us on.

During the celebrating of our first bear kill we jokingly said we need a name for our newfound hunting group and the name WayPoint hunting club was floated out there. Nick took it all in good stride and agreed it was a good name for our group so it just kind of stuck from their on out.