[pct-l] Bears and minimalists

[CMountainDave@aol.com (CMountainDave@aol.com)]

One last word (for me) on bears: No type of food storage is going to make 
bears fear man. They will continue to enter our camps forever when they smell 
it until they do fear us. They have no reason not to. They don't know how 
food is stored when they smell it. Without fear, they will investigate the 
source of the smell. Nothing can stop them from being aggressive except fear
    Poor management that allowed bears to lose their fear of man caused the 
bear problem. I simply want the NPS to acknowledge this and do something 
about it instead of taking their mistakes out on me via required bear 
canisters.
   As to gore tex vagabonds, Tom-They're just questioning our cultures 
embracing of materialism. You are certainly "free" to embrace that if you so 
choose. Why put down "minimalists" who don't wish to participate and choose a 
different value system instead. Several old timers have told me "Kid don't 
wait until you're my age to follow your dreams. Do it while you're young 
before it's too late. A healthy tomorrow may never come." It's the best 
advice I ever got. Minimalists simply want time instead of money and are 
quite clever in achieving that end. They just wish to investigate the 
spiritual quest of the Buddhists, Aboriginals, Indians, John Muir and Thoreau 
instead of trying to accumulate money and objects. What better way to achieve 
that than to turn one's back on our culture with a 6 month Pilgrimage through 
the woods. As long as they're not leaching off of you, why should you care 
unless they make you feel uneasy about your own values by believing there's a 
different way to exist. Some people like the corporate lifestyle, some like 
being self employed in endeavors that they love. Others simply are tired of 
trading time for money and want to slip through the cracks of the company 
floor and just get by so they can pursue something other than  your definiton 
of success. There's nothing wrong in any of those things. It's just a choice. 
Thanks for the mental stimulation, though.