[pct-l] canisters in the Southern Sierra

[cmkudija at earthlink.net (Christine Kudija)]

<<Some idiots cooked in a bearikade repeatedly which slowly
weakened the bond between the base plate and the side.>>

COOKED in a Bearikade?????  Hunnnnhh?  Darwin award nomination, anyone?

Christine "Ceanothus" Kudija

"Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top.
Then you will see how low it was."  Dag Hammarskjold

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Verber" <mark@verber.com>
To: <pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net>
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 9:01 AM
Subject: RE: [pct-l] canisters in the Southern Sierra


| > I think it is stuped to requie them they should have a test
| > and see iof you know what the hell your doing
|
| Time has demonstrated that the general public can't be trusted to handle
| their food and deal with the bears in an appropriate way. So the rangers
| can't "trust you".  Would you be willing to pay for your "certified
hanger"
| permit, because it would cost money to admin the prograM which can
| distinguish between people who have the appropriate skills, and those who
| don't.  Of course, even those will skills can be lazy.  I have the
requires
| skills, but I can remember one night many years ago after hiking all day
in
| the rain not having the energy to hang my food.  Nothing happened that
night
| which I consider luck.
|
| As much as I hate carrying the extra weight, when I am in sierra bear
| country I carry a cannister.
|
| > I can hang my food and one bear one  get it. I have been
| > around bears and in bear country all my life with no
| > problims.
|
| My experience has been the Yellowstone bears are reasonably skilled at
going
| after hanging food (in the Rockies I think the Yellowstone bears are the
| worst)... but I have never lost food in the Rockies (and nearby
mountains).
| The Sierra bears are simply amazing... and brazen.  I have watched someone
| lose food which was hung appropriately.  The bag was over a branch that
was
| almost 25ft high.  A cub was sent up, crawled out on the branch, and nawed
| all night and into the next day before the branch finally snapped.
Throwing
| rocks, yelling, etc didn't frighten them off.
|
| > I have also seen bear caisters get ttested
| > and riped apart
|
| I suppose that's why you test canisters before approving them.  To filter
| out those which aren't up to the task.  In the sierra's, cannisters which
| have made it through the approval process, and then survived for a year in
| the field have yet to be "ripped apart" as far as I know.  There was maybe
| one exception.  Some idiots cooked in a bearikade repeatedly which slowly
| weakened the bond between the base plate and the side.  I don't know if
this
| seam failed or not, but I assume something must have happened because it's
| approval status was pulled.  But even in this case, I doubt the bearicade
| was "ripped apart" because it was still approved with a minor retrofit.
The
| canisters which are currenly approved have survived in the field for
| multiple years with fewer than 2 failures.  e.g. they are not prone to
being
| ripped apart.  I have heard of no failures of the currently approved
| canisters.  I would love to see real documentation (pictures would be
cool)
| that Garcia Machine or a non cooked in Bearicade has failed.  I just don't
| believe these would have failed.
|
| --Mark
|
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