Palecek, Nic Volpi, the Cadogans and I went hiking in Yosemite. I think it was the Spring of our second year at the GSB. On the first night we hung our food and smelly stuff up high on a tree nearby (which of course is exactly what you are NOT supposed to do) to keep it away from the bears. Girls, if you are reading this, ALWAYS carry bear canisters. We went to sleep (I think Nic and I were sharing a tent, Tim and Catherine were in another one, and pathfinder Dave was of course bivouacking). A couple of hours later he heard Dave moving outside and got out of our tents to find a couple of bears climbing up the tree to try to get to our food. The rest of us were relatively new to this(totally new, except maybe for Tim), but Dave knew exactly what to do. He said to take out pots and pans and start making lots of noise. Which we did, and the bears went away for a bit. But these 2 bears, a big one and a small one, were very persistent, and kept coming back. All we could see was their litle red eyes, climbing up the tree. They would go away, and after 20 minutes, they would be back again. After a while, Dave decided that we should start a fire and sleep in our bags next to it, while one of us took it in turns to scare the bears away every time they approached the camp. This went on until 5 or 6 AM, when the sun came up and the bears finally gave up. All through this time Palecek was just so cool and relaxed, and finding the humour in it, that he made the rest of us feel it was safe. And this is the end of the bear story, which I have told many times, and I hope to be telling my grand children one day. I learned to love the outdoors in many trips with Dave, and for this among other things, his friendship made me a better person.