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[pct-l] attack bears on the JMT



Bear attacks are rare and probably all injuries are probably not intentional
on the Bear's part. They just want the food. There was one attack at
Thousand Island Lake and and two others at Center Basin that I have heard
of. Unfortunately the direction seems to be towards more agressive bears
both in the backcountry and in the car campgrounds.

Injuries to "dominate the bear types" are not rare. I have witnessed one.
However, I happen to agree with Greg that this falls into the category of
Darwin Award. If the idiot gets hurt, who cares?

In general the problem with sleeping with their food is with JMT hikers who
hike later in the season not thruhikers who usually traverse the Sierra in
early season. The only problems that I have heard about concerning
thruhikers is when is delayed into the high hiking season but still tries to
use early season tactics. In one case a woman who was delayed was stalked
all night by a bear at Lake Aloah. She left the trail.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Courtway [mailto:scourtway@bpa-arch.com]
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 11:34 AM
To: pct-l@backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] attack bears on the JMT


so far, we've read one story about some Yosemite beer enthusiasts,
one of whom upchucked in his tent and got dragged down the trail
by an attack bear.  But what do we have in the way of hard facts
that a bear would even do anything more than poke his head in the
tarp, sniff around, grab food if he can, whatever ?

again, I was more than happy to just lay there listening to the sounds
of lovely slobber and hundreds of pounds of potentially deadly animal
pound around just outside my tent, and enjoyed the snort of disgust which
I swore I could hear "dammit another bear can" clearly thru the flapping
bruin gums.

luckily, bears and mosquitos keep the wild wild, and I'm not sure that
the small numbers of hikers sleeping in good locations with their food
weighs well against the guy who attempts to dominate the bear to the
point they try to get back what now belongs to the bear, their food.

s.c.

I was just able to fit everything I felt I wanted for my JMT hike in
a golite gust (around 5000 ci I believe) incl. the can, and endedup
around 22 lbs.

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