[pct-l] Search and Seizure

[richardlcox at gmail.com (Richard Cox)]

I believe strongly that everyone has the right to fight the battles
they choose, and the others have the right to snicker as they go off
to fight their own equally valid and sometimes arbitrary battles. Hike
You own Fight.

One thing to keep in mind is the intent of these laws about bear
cansiters. I believe the intent of this law is not driven by the
enormus power and money of the bear canister industry who throw
billions of dollars of money at political candidates and lobbiests to
maintain their lucrative position in the bear canister market.

I believe the intent of this law is to help keep our wildlife areas
wild and prevent conditioning of bears (and other wildlife) from being
domesticated and trained toward interaction with humans. Laws are a
difficult thing to write and cover all cases. This is where judgement
in enforcement comes in with all laws and that is a sticky and
subjective subject. If the police never enforce a speed limit on a
road, does it matter that the law says 25 and you go 50?

There are a lot of people who don't take the time to understand the
issues of living with wildlife and grab packs and food and head out to
a place like Tuolumne Meadows without a thought of the fact that they
are helping to train the bears in that area to approach humans and
their vehicles for food.

As a thru-hiker I met a ranger in the back country who stopped to talk
to four of us about 15 miles north of Tuolumne. After chatting about
the PCT for about 45 minutes she said - so what do you do about bears?
I assume you are not carrying a canister. - In three out of four cases
she was right on that day.

She listened carefully to our strategy and found it interesting and
informative. After chatting for another few minutes she wished us luck
and moved on. We passed her about an hour later talking to some other
hikers we knew.

I believe that we were compliant with the intent of the law, and she
saw and understood that to be true, and agreed that our plan would be
successful. If we had been closer to Tuolumme and planning to camp
there, I think we would be defying the letter and intent of the law
and she would have, rightly, cited us.

Now all that being said, I do believe in personal freedom and that you
have every right not to be searched in the back country. Hell, I won't
show the person at the door what is in the bag of stuff I just bought
when am leaving a store because I feel that after I purchase it it is
an invastion of privacy for anyone to know what I have in my
possession.

But I am glad that those laws exist because the net effect across the
general population has a positive impact on my experience in the
wildlife area. I also don't advocate hiking without a bear canister.

The only thing I am certain of is that this is not the right answer,
it is just my answer. And, it is open to change based on hearing the
other things people have to say.

HYOH

The One
PCT 2003