[pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

Wed Jun 13 21:48:15 CDT 2012

OK...I'm gonna jump in here to semi-change the subject, but since we are on the topic of odor proof sacks/rodent/bear proof techniques...
What is your guy's favorite brand/make of OP sacks and bear canisters
Prost,
Chris Anderson

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Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat!
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A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.
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________________________________
 From: Edward Anderson <mendoridered at yahoo.com>
To: Elisabeth M. Chaplin <echaplin at gmail.com>; "pct-l at backcountry.net" <pct-l at backcountry.net> 
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

Good Morning Liz,

First, let me apologize to you, since you apparently thought that I was "trivializing" your approach or yourself in the use of OPSaks. I was merely seeking an explanation of why the mice got into your OPSak on that one occasion as described by yourself. Based on my own experiences , I could only think of the two possible explanations that I described

I greatly appreciate your very thoughtful response to my comments regarding the OPSaks.  I think we all realize that nothing - no product - no approach - no person - is perfect or absolutely infallible in every possible situation. We do not live in a perfect world. There is always the possibility that some small human error can be the cause of the failure of even the most ambitious of projects. Here, I am thinking of our space program and that very small human errors can be the cause of major catastrophes. We can only move on, identify the probable cause of those errors, and try to avoid making them in the future. 

My own concern, regarding the possibility of losing food to animals during my planned PCT journey, resulted in the only approach that seemed likely to work. Since I knew that animals would  be attracted to not only the SMELL, but also the SIGHT of locations where food might be found, I planned to do my best to eliminate both. One of my biggest worries was that bears would discover my food and take all of it. Please realize that my way of going on the PCT was very different from that of the hikers, and even from that of most equestrians who have ridden on the PCT. That is because the approach to resupply that I decided on, after passing through Southern California (during that part of the PCT My wife met me four times, a friend dropped off my food at Kennedy Meadows, and I cached six times) was to leave Primo in safe care and drive my rig north, caching as I went. I would then park the rig at a safe location and, most often, hitch back to
Primo and all of my tack and supplies - and then mount up to continue north. You might want to view my PCT slide show. You will see pictures of a typical food cache among the pictures in that show. (The location shown in those photographs was near a road crossing at the place where the PCT leaves Siskiyou Summit heading north. I buried several caches between Seiad Valley and McKenzie Pass near Sisters, Oregon.)  Also, note what I learned when I arrived at Beldon and went to uncover my cache that had been there for about 10 days.  If you want to see that, you can find a link at:      postholer.com/stockman      

Another thing that I did, because of my great concern that bears might discover my food, was to use, and recycle, moth balls. I had learned from two of my customers, who had spent a lot of time canoeing in the Yukon, that "Bear Charms" (the term comes from the Yukon) were used there to discourage bears. Bear charms, as they were called in parts of the Yukon, were simply cotton tobacco sacks with two or three mothballs inside. The smell of mothballs was a kind repellent in that bears dislike it and do not associate it with something that they would consider eating.   So, I included mothballs as part of my defense system against bears. Hiker, Steeleye, was later to point out that brave, bold, bears that had become habituated to humans might not be deterred by the smell of mothballs. He may well be right, I had only used them in areas where there were wild bears who were occasionally hunted. My wife and I had used them for about 20 years,
including some of the wilder parts of the Sierra, and felt that they were effective. At least, no bear problems.

So, I used both the mothball smell and also the OPSaks, both in caches and also when storing food at night in camps. In addition, I also, camouflaged the places where my OPSaks would be placed. That approach has worked for me. I would never consider storing food in my tent at night - not even if it was in an OPSak. 

Again, Liz, I want to once again apologize to you since you took my response personally. That was not my intention. Perhaps I should become more sensitive when posting.

What is BPL?

Sincerely,
MendoRider-Hiker

________________________________
From: Elisabeth M. Chaplin <echaplin at gmail.com>
To: mendoridered at yahoo.com 
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 11:59 PM
Subject: Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows

Hi MendoRider, I'm this Liz you speak of. 

While I never intended to participate directly nor indirectly in one of the PCT-l's infamous discussions, I originally felt compelled to say something in response to someone because I did indeed have an experience that left me less than confident relying on OPSaks as a foolproof method to deter critters from getting into my food -- an idea that would be much more convenient if it were absolutely true. I have no interest in furthering the PCT-l debate, but I wanted to reply to you because I recognize how valuable your contributions to the list have been and as an actively participating member of the list forum, you could really have some sway with people asking those kinds of questions -- and I feel like you are trivializing my experience and further, you are trivializing me personally on to some degree by asserting that I failed to use or understand how to use the product. Had you been present at the time or even asked me directly about the
circumstances, maybe you would be able to make those assertions fairly.  

As confident as you are that they always work in your repeated tests, I'm confident that they aren't guaranteed to always work in the field. This was MY real world experience. Even if you have not had that same experience, it does not mean that how I used my gear was unreasonable and somehow flawed. I assure you, I understand how to zip an OPSak, and I acknowledged on the list that there is NO way of knowing in a real world setting if I had somehow contaminated the outside of the bag despite my best efforts not to -- so then, I think that makes me a great example of the average, thoughtful user. From where I stand, my experience had a result that should not be discounted only because it counters your results. My result should be considered from a practical stance: If I am an average user, then other average users might expect similar results. One night out of dozens of nights in a row I experienced a problem, and in the big picture, that's nothing to
sweat over.

There's also a backyard testing thread going on over at BPL regarding the OPSaks, and I quote my reply to it below. Perhaps it more thoroughly sums up what I was trying to communicate on the blog comment that was thrown into the mix on the PCT-l. To clarify: in that blog comment, which I made on an external site, I discuss two incidences of mice -- one was concerning the new OPSak, when a mouse chewed through; the second was the last night on the trail, when a mouse chewed through my tent to try to get to the food bag -- I never specified that I was using an OPSak at that point, though I was using a tattered one, as I had otherwise been hanging my food on a critter line throughout WA. I wouldn't have expected an OPSak in such used condition to accomplish anything except hold my food in one place. I was simply illustrating that mice are a real force to consider while on the trail.  

All of the is it/is it not odor-proof debate aside, I think the following quote, quoted from another BPL member's comment on the same thread, sums it up the real issue about OPSaks:

"
"Your gear may be perfect for any job, but if your procedures for using the gear are flawed or impossible to implement then it doesn't matter.""

That's how I see it too. 

Simply put, I have had a mouse chew through a brand new OPSak, first night out of Kennedy Meadows on my PCT thru hike while it was in my vestibule. While there is NO way of knowing if I got food odors on the outside of the bag while handling it (and yes I did zip it properly -- I'd been backpacking for over two months straight at that point, and had nine days of food heading into the Sierra in a high snow year, you bet your buttons I was a bit food obsessed/paranoid), the real point of it is that the OPSak was as clean and unscented as it was ever going to get at that point! The more meals I pulled in and out of it, the less unscented it would become. 

In theory, odor proof, but in practicality it's really hard to keep gear clean -- so to rely on them because you've luckily never had a problem, or to put your faith in them because they're advertised to be odor-proof seems a bit eager in my opinion. They are awesome to hopefully reduce the chance that a critter would even take note of your food bag, and I still carry them on my trips for that reason. But I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again, and I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket without some skepticism and understanding that I'm taking a risk, even if it's hugely less than not using an OPSak in the first place. For me, they're part of a system, not my one size fits all solution. 
"

All the best, Liz.
Class of 2011. 
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