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[pct-l] Faulty logic



Don't get me wrong, I see nothing at all wrong with stealth camping. But I 
think the reasoning that it prevents bear encounters is flawed. I didn't really 
stealth camp much at all on my thru hike preferring, like most, to camp near 
water when it was available. Since I only saw one bear on the entire trip, 
should I reason that camping near water will prevent bear problems? Of course not. 
Just because one has no bear problems when camping means absolutely nothing. 
The bears just happened to be elsewhere. True, they are probably accustomed to 
raiding food caches in places of past success. But what about other areas, 
such as the Cascades. The reason you don't have bear problems no matter where 
you camp there is simple indeed: They are afraid of you. Where there are 
problems, such as in the Sierras, they aren't. And whose fault exactly is that? The 
users or the managers.
 And all the canisters in the world won't stop an unscared bear from checking 
out those food odors coming from your pack, camp, breath, stool, or through 
the lid of the can itself. He has no idea it isn't available until he tries to 
get it. I'm convinced that a bear smells like we see: a tiny red dot stands 
out like a sore thumb on a white surface. I think they can actually "see" an 
odor coming from a single molecule of whatever in the same way.
 The unscared bear has nothing to fear but fear itself. That is why the 
experiment with canisters is doomed to fail. And requiring us to carry them, but 
not use them properly due to impossible enforcement doesn't help much either