[pct-l] bears and canisters

[Alicia Reenders]

Wanted to put my 2 cents in. We did not see a single bear in the Sierra or
Yosemite, leading me to believe that the canister program is working.
Please use the canisters here and keep the trend going!
We did see black bears starting in Northern California near Etna, seeing 7
total all the way up till northern Wash. They were all running away from us
as fast as they could. I agree that the bear spray seems impractical for
this reason, and since you would have to have it ready to fire in an
emergency. I saw probably 10 bear spray canisters left behind in the hiker
boxes as we went. People just didn't seem to need them.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned much is the idea of sleeping with your
food. We only used the canisters in the required areas, and slept with it
next to us in a plastic grocery bag at all other times. This helped protect
it from rodents as well. As far as I've seen, there's just no way to hang a
food bag, odor proof or not, in a way that a bear can't get to it. Those
perfect tree limbs just aren't out there. And from what I remember at the
bear info session at kick-off, the experts agree that there's no good way
to hang your food. You are just training the bears to look for people, grab
the food bag, and have a snack. If people would stop hanging food, maybe
the bears would stop associating people with food. I think this is true for
odor-proof sacks as well. Keep them in your tent! And always avoid a bear's
favorite hang-out spot, which is near trash, public access points near
roads, and public beach/campground areas.

Bear canisters 24/7 would be another way to achieve this, but not many of
us have the funds or the will to carry one the whole way. Maybe there will
be more affordable light-weight options in the future as technology gets
better.

Anyway that's what I think. Wonder what others think of keeping food in the
tent.