[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[pct-l] Bears in the Cal Sierra -- What's Going On.



I had 2 bear encounters on the PCT this year, one
being near Lyell Creek.

We had been hiking all day and it was dark when we
stopped. We were ~6 miles from Tuolomne with the
option of continuing in the dark our camping where
we were. The stories of bears in this area was no
secert and we really didn't want to camp here, but
did anyways. This was about 6/15 and just after
dark we had a visit by a very brazen bear. We were
sleeping with our food (that's right, deal with it)
but we did not cook in the area. This bear made a wide
circle around our camp with us yelling and banging
ice axes. It left us alone, end of encounter. 2 other
pct hikers were not so lucky. They hung their food
in an Ursack and about 2am a bear got its teeth into
the bag. One of the ball'sy hikers stoned the bear from
as little as six feet and the bear left, without food!

Near the Benson Lake trail we ran into a ranger who
asked us if we had bear cans. She says, "answer honestly".
I told her no, I had an Ursack. She went on to explain
that those weren't an approved container. She went on
to say, "If I had to give every PCT hiker a ticket for
not carrying a bear can, I'd have to give every PCT hiker
a ticket." We talked a bit more and that was it. VERY cool
ranger.

Scott Parks




__________________________________________________________
Outgrown your current e-mail service? Get 25MB Storage, POP3 Access,
Advanced Spam protection with LYCOS MAIL PLUS.
http://login.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus&ref=lmtplus