[pct-l] Bear boxes for thru hikers in the Sierras

[Jeffrey Olson]

http://www.onthetrail.org/Images/map032107.pdf

This map says where you need to carry bear canisters.  If you are going 
to camp in a purple area that has not bear boxes, you need to carry a 
canister.  Warner Springs Monty did a nice write up of this last year i 
think it was.  it should be in the archives.

A couple years ago I planned a trip starting at Trail Pass, down to the 
Kern River, up that to Lake South America, over the hump to tyndall 
creek, and back to trail pass.  Cottonwood Pass is a "quota" trailhead 
and you had to have a reservation or hope there weren't so many people 
you had to participate in a lottery.  I believe we would have had to 
carry a canister if we'd entered here as it goes directly into a 
canister required area.  Note the above map talks about a "food storage 
locker requirement area."  This means you can use the bear box rather 
than a canister.

http://climber.org/data/BearBoxes/map.html

This is a decent map saying where bear boxes are located.  Note you can 
click on the name and get a topo with bear box locations.  When we got 
our permit i argued that we would be staying at bear box locations each 
night we were on the trail.  This was legal two years ago.  We didn't 
need to carry canisters.  We were issued a permit at the Lone Pine 
Regional Center with the issuing ranger totally cognizant we weren't 
carrying canisters.

Jeffrey Olson
Santa Rosa, CA


On 6/27/2010 4:03 PM, Tom Griffin wrote:
> In the advice the list gave Swiss Miss about packing a bear canister for
> the trip between Kennedy Meadows and VVR, no one suggested that she put
> the extra food that didn't fit in her canister in a bear box. I thought
> the bear boxes were in place for JMT and PCT thru hikers to use. Am I
> wrong about the availability of bear boxes on the trail? Do any thru
> hikers rely on these exclusively?
>
> Tom "Bullfrog" Griffin
> Seattle
> _______________________________________________
> Pct-l mailing list
> Pct-l at backcountry.net
> To unsubcribe, or change options visit:
> http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l
>
> List Archives:
> http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/pct-l/
>