[pct-l] Trailhead Bearboxes Food Caches

[Bob Bankhead]

It's a crap shoot. There is no guarantee that your cache will still be there
when you arrive. The bear boxes are not locked and are accessible to
everyone. Put your name(s) as well as the expected pickup date on each box.
Even then, theft happens. Have a Plan B in case that happens to you.

Also, the public boxes the ranger refers to (at Onion Valley) are those
along the north edge of the parking lot, near the bathrooms, not the ones in
the campsites at the USFS Campground. Those are strictly for the folks
renting the campsites. The public boxes are out in the open and exposed to
the full sun all day long. Can your supplies withstand being in a steel oven
for 8-10 days? Definitely don't leave your cache - even in a bear canister -
inside your vehicle. The bears (and yes, they are there routinely. Why else
do you think there are bear boxes in each campsite and the parking lots?)
will rip the windows out of your car to get at the source of the smell. Mice
can get into some of them.

Onion Valley Pack Station will hold supply boxes for a large fee, but they
don't open until mid to late June. They also have hot showers for a small
additional fee ($5 in 2008) for those whose packages they hold. Walk0ins
need not apply.

As I recall, Horseshoe Meadows does not have public bear boxes either at the
trailhead or in the parking lots. The only bear boxes are found in the
campground, where one box must serve two campsites. Those boxes would not be
a smart place to leave a cache as you can almost bet it would not survive.
The Mt Whitney commercially guided hikes use HSMCG as their starting point
and they take up most of the available space, especially on weekends.