Re: [pct-l] bear boxes

[Birgitte Jensen <bjensen4@juno.com>]

On Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:35:41 -0700 reynolds@ilan.com writes:
>If you do not take a bear canister from Kennedy Meadows [north] you 
>will be "at risk" until you reach Crabtree Meadows [Mt. Whitney]. This
>section, however, does not have really agresive bears so
>counterbalancing [bear bagging] will probably work 
>North of Crabtree Meadow there are numerous bear boxs 

    This post read a bit garbled to me, so I thought I'd add a bit of
information of my own. 

     There are bear boxes _before_ you reach Crabtree, and serious
bear-problems south of Crabtree to Cottonwood Pass, as well - which is
why you'll find boxes in the Rock Creek drainage.

>guarding your food with your body is both illegial [in some parts] and
dangerous 

     I'm quite certain guarding food with your body is not illegal
anywhere, Tom; in fact, isn't there a "24-hour guard" reg above
timberline? The notion of "danger" is subjective, of course, but I don't
believe black bears in the Sierra are snatching food from hikers' hands
etc. (There's an enormous difference between not wandering away from your
food/standing firm with food on your person - vs trying to snatch your
food back from a bear.) 
      OTOH, if fear of dismemberment is all that will stop some hikers
from sloppy food-storage, then I guess I'll jump on the
bear-attack-bandwagon too, <VBG>

>Just because the NPS/USFS have been idiotic about keeping food from 
>bears

    All the NPS/FS personnel I've met (admittedly not many <g>) have
seemed scrupulous about keeping food from bears.     bj




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