[pct-l] Smart bears

[Tortoise]

Well on that trip it didn't take until 2am to hang the food; more like 
15 minutes. At that elevation and location there were suitable trees.

OTOH, I suspended some of my food on a line between two trees. The bears 
got that.

----------
Tortoise

<> He who finishes last, wins! <>

I switched to Mac OSX rather than fight Windows
Using Mozilla Thunderbird  http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

Steve Courtway wrote:
> As stated, spending a couple hours trying to counterbalance your food in the 
> dark until 2:00 a.m. after hiking all day is a real hoot !!!
> 
> s.c.
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tortoise" <Tortoise73 at charter.net>
> To: <joph at piedmontbsa.org>
> Cc: <karsten.n.hazelett at smithbarney.com>; <pct-l at backcountry.net>; 
> <Slyatpct at aol.com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 4:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Smart bears
> 
> 
>> Years ago I recall someone was selling a commercial version of this. I
>> bought such a cleat and played around with it but couldn't figure out
>> how to work it in the woods.
>>
>> Years ago I led a Sierra (Club) Singles trip to Rancheria Falls in
>> Yosemite where we used the counter balance method for our group food.
>> Bears tried to get the food but all they did was damage the tree. Maybe
>> the bears are smarter now. However the counter balance method depends a
>> lot on finding a suitable limb on a suitable tree; often hard to find.
>> Also when counterbalancing the food, one should loosely coil the free
>> end of the line and lay it over the lower bag being raised; and leave a
>> loop dangling down so one can use a limb or pole to pull the free end
>> down when one is ready to lower the food. This eliminates a line hanging
>> where a bear and pull on it and perhaps break the line.
>>
>> But as others have noted, counterbalancing apparently doesn't work very
>> well any more in the Sierras.
>>
>> ----------
>> Tortoise
>>
>> <> He who finishes last, wins! <>
>>
>> I switched to Mac OSX rather than fight Windows
>> Using Mozilla Thunderbird  http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
>>
>> Jo Pegrum Hazelett wrote:
>>> Hi Sly-- I had my husband answer this for you-- (BTW-- I'm Josie)
>>>
>>> Hello Sly and Donna,
>>>  Bears can and do grasp with their fore paws--we've seen it up close and
>>> personal , in this case a cub yanking on the tag-end of a line in his 
>>> paw.
>>> We have never lost food to bears, even when others in the vicinity lost
>>> theirs using more customary methods.  Like Josie said, we have actually 
>>> had
>>> 40 face-to-face encounters with bears, the majority of which were in
>>> Yosemite, and not all of those incidents were controversies over our food
>>> bags.  The clamcleat method is ingenious, but I didn't invent it, I got 
>>> the
>>> idea from a long-time backpacking and sailing friend who was a forester 
>>> and
>>> former Scoutmaster who is now in his 80's and has hiked thousands of 
>>> miles
>>> in Yosemite, the Sierra, and places beyond (most western states). 
>>> Whatever
>>> works for anyone is best.  Our experience with the clamcleat vs
>>> counterbalance method is that the clamcleat wins hands down.  Josie is
>>> right...unless it's a well designed canister, everything else is just a
>>> delaying tactic.
>>> Missing the long trail,
>>> --Kerry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>   _____
>>>
>>> From: Slyatpct at aol.com [mailto:Slyatpct at aol.com]
>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 9:39 PM
>>> To: joph at piedmontbsa.org; pct-l at backcountry.net; dsaufley at sprynet.com
>>> Cc: karsten.n.hazelett at smithbarney.com
>>> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Smart bears
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> joph at piedmontbsa.org writes:
>>>
>>> My husband used a clam cleat like sailors use
>>> for securing the sheets on a sailboat to run the bag up the tree, then he
>>> threw the rope up so it wasn't on the ground. If we had bear visitors and 
>>> we
>>> were unlucky enough to have the bear snag the rope and pull on it, all 
>>> that
>>> happened was that the bag would be cinched up higher on the rope.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>   _____
>>>
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