[pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows - POSTSCRIPT

Tue Jun 12 11:36:39 CDT 2012

Maxine,

Please read what I have added to clarify my last post.

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Edward Anderson <mendoridered at yahoo.com>
To: Maxine Weyant <weyantm at msn.com> 
Cc: "pct-l at backcountry.net" <pct-l at backcountry.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 8:25 AM
Subject: [pct-l] Fw:  Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

Good Morning Maxine,

The rodents in my Agua Dulce barn do chew on many things. They have cost us a lot of money since we moved to Agua Dulce 4.5 years ago. They destroyed the air conditioner of our Ford Taurus ($950.00), they nested in the throttle linkage of our van camper - causing an accident when it suddenly accelerated full-throttle. They have chewed on and shorted out the wires on several of my power tools. They have also chewed on and damaged horse tack if we left it out of the tack room overnight. (We have rodent proofed the tack room and always keep the door closed to keep them out.) Seems that everyone that I have talked to who live in this high-desert town have rodent stories to tell. That is why our barn is an excellent place to test prepackaged foods (that I might want to bring on the trail) and the effectiveness of the OPSacks. I was very surprised that they did not chew into some of the pre-packaged foods - especially that the cheese crackers and jerky
 (WHEN STORED IN THE OPSAKS )
were untouched after three weeks with rodents walking all over and around them to get at the cheeses and energy bars that were not protected inside OPSaks.
THEY DID NOT CHEW INTO THE OPSAKS - NOT EVEN WHEN I PUT THE CHEESES AND BARS INSIDE.

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN BELOW AND READ MY POST FROM YESTERDAY.

The OPSaks also worked for my during 5.5 months mostly living on the PCT between Mexico and Canada.  Since I rode a horse, I took most of my "0" days on the trail. I resupplied myself. So, I spent more time on the trail than most hikers do on a 5.5 month thru-hike.

MendoRider-Hiker

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Edward Anderson <mendoridered at yahoo.com>
To: James Vesely <JVesely at edmsupply.com> 
Cc: "pct-l at backcountry.net" <pct-l at backcountry.net>; Brick Robbins <brick at brickrobbins.com> 
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

Hi James,

I have read your opinion regarding the likely effectiveness of OPSaks in keeping food safe from "animals".  What I stated was not based on subjective opinion - it is based on what I have learned from real, on trail, experience and, as I said, extensive testing. My laboratory is my barn. Since I live in the hills above Agua Dulce, we have lots rodents - it is impossible to keep them out of our barn. Rats, mice and ground squirrels invade. As early as the spring of 2008, when I learned about the OPSaks (I had bought some at REI), I begin testing them to see if they would really work. Since then I have continued testing various pre-packaged foods, most are available from Super Markets and from Costco. These are some of the foods that I bring with me to eat while riding on the PCT. Since I ride solo, and rely on caching as my chosen strategy for resupply, it is imperative that I not lose my food to animals - either from a cache location or while
at a camp sight. Whenever possible, I choose to camp alone with my horse well off the PCT.  If you viewed my slide show accessed from the link, you will become aware of this. I mostly LIVE on the PCT - resupplying at as many as four caches between locations where I will have driven ahead and parked my rig, At my Beldon Town cache I lost ALL 30 pounds of my processed horse feed.  All of that had been stored in three and five pound Food-Saver Bags - heat sealed, "air tight". I had had my food stored (in the middle of all the other bags) in an OPSak, also in that cache was two cans of V8 juice and a fuel canister. My food was not touched by whatever animals ate the horse feed. The ranger, thought that it must have been rodents. Since the animals who got the horse feed would have walked all over and around the transparent OPSak, I conclude that seeing the food inside did not lead to their chewing in.  About 10 days had passed since I had cached
there. It was my second of four caches between Sierra City and Old Station. From then on I put all horse feed in OPSaks and had no problems. Rodents apparently rely on their exceptional since of smell, and not on their eyes. ( I think that Bears are much, much, smarter. I hid and camouflaged (while in camps) all of the OPSak food bags when in Bear Country - most of N. Calif, Oregon and Washington. I should mention that I was always very carefull not to get any food smells on the outside of the OPSaks. If there was a possibility of food smells on my thumb and forefinger that I used when carefully sealing the sacks, I used toilet paper to separate my skin  from the plastic.

Now, let me mention some of my findings from my current barn rodent test. These items have been in a rodent run for about three weeks..Here are the pre-packaged foods tested without using an OPSak: (For extra bait, I also put an unprotected bowl of COB with Molasses horse feed in the middle of the other food. COB stands for Corn, Oats, and Barley. The COB was eaten first.)

1) various trail mix, energy and candy bars - including 4 kinds of Nature Valley bars, Snickers, etc.  2) different cheeses - Baby Bels, Stater Bros, etc. 3)  Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate Sensation 4) Pacific Gold Original Beef Jerky (1.25 oz package)  5) Fritolay Munchies Cheder Cheese. 6) Knorr Rice Sides (chicken Flavor)  7) Idahoan Roasted Garlic mashed Potatoes  8) Williams Country Gravey 9)  Kirkland Roasted and Salted Peanuts.   OF THE NINE DESCRIBED ABOVE -  SURPRISE - ONLY #1,#2 AND #3 WERE EATEN BY THE RODENTS. #4 THROUGH  #9 WERE UNTOUCHED. Now, it is significant that all of the same items (including some sausage) were also stored in OPSaks laid along the same rodent run. They were not touched. To me, this is convincing proof that some of the prepackaged foods were not smelled by the rodents - and that the OPSaks do work if sealed properly in accordance with the manufacturers instructions.

So, James, with all due respect for you and for your opinion, I consider the sharing of my findings with this list to be the right thing to do.
I am confident that if you and others will do the same tests that I described above, you will have the same results. Just use care that the OPSak is sealed properly and that you do not get food smells outside the sacks.

Sincerely,
MendoRider-Hiker

________________________________
From: James Vesely <JVesely at edmsupply.com>
To: Brick Robbins <brick at brickrobbins.com> 
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 6:40 AM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

First, animals associate human scent to "food" minus any food scent on any items.   Second, it would be almost impossible to remove scents that an animal's highly sensitive sense of smell can detect.    

An OPsack may remove gross smell that can be detected from a distance but once an animal has started nosing around a campsite I believe they will find it.   Minus a surgical scrub of your hands after every food encounter and before opening and closing the bag I would highly doubt that you could make it scentless to most wild animals and most animals just know bag = food scent or no scent.  

Jim 

Subject: Re: [pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

I have tested them extensively - not just while on the trail, but also in my rodent-infested barn.  OPSaks have always worked for me.

Liz's problem would have been due to either of the following reasons: (Or perhaps
both)   1) When she sealed the sack, she did not seal it completely. It is critical that the seal (similar to a ZipLock seal - but a little more difficult to do)  be complete. I run my thumb and forefinger across, with pressure, three or four times) or   2) She got some food smells outside the OPSak.

MendoRider-Hiker 

________________________________
From: Brick Robbins <brick at brickrobbins.com>
To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

According to Mendo Rider, OpSacks are perfect.

On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Elisabeth M. Chaplin
<echaplin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dys-feng shui-nal,
>
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