#bear bagging

This photo from Stephanie Hunt is illustrative of what happens when food is not hung properly.  This was not her unfortunate mistake but some other hikers she encountered on the PCT.

I tend to agree with Andrew Skurka who suggests that bear bags are a stubborn fixture of the backpacking world. Hanging is recommended, taught, and practiced by influential organizations and individuals even though it is less effective, less foolproof, less reliable, less efficient, and less safe than other food protection techniques, notably hard-sided canisters and (to a lesser degree) soft-sided bear-resistant food sacks. Skurka continues, “It’s an outdated and ineffective method of food storage, and backpackers (and bears) would benefit from a reprogramming on this topic. There are a few popular hang configurations, such as the simple tie-off, PCT method, and counter-balance.” In a perfect world, the end result is this:

In the real world, this is surprisingly difficult to achieve (read and enjoy Kim Todd’s story ‘Bear Bagging’ in The Pacific Crest Trailside Reader: Oregon and Washington).

Skurka’s Recommended alternatives:

If permanent infrastructure is available (e.g. lockers, cable systems), use it.

If hard-sided canisters like the Bearvault BV450 are required, carry one.

If bears regularly (or even occasionally) obtain human food where you are camping, carry a hard-sided canister even if it’s not required.

If you are camping in bear habitat but there are no reports of bears stealing food and no hard-sided canister requirement, use an Ursack Major or Ursack AllMitey (which is also rodent-resistant).

And, when using high-use campsites in bear-free habitats, rodent hang your food.

Bob Dawson recounted this experience:

Just outside of Yosemite, at Thousand Island Lake on the JMT, 2:30 in the morning, I got woken up to a CRASH, I knew what it had to be and yelled "GO AWAY", grabbed my headlamp jumped out of the tent, saw a medium sized bear slash my wife’s backpack open (see photo below) , grab a ziplock of red gatorade powder, turn his/her head to look at me as if he/she was saying "What?". I kept yelling, and he slowly sauntered off about 20 feet, sat down with the baggy in his/her mouth and kept staring at me. Needless to say, we packed up and left, because the bear wasn't going to.

Totally our fault, she had left a small ziplock of drink powder in her pack, plus left the pack outside. BTW, Osprey, withe their iron-clad, no-fault guarantee replaced the pack for free. This has been the only bear I've seen in the Sierra, after three trips there. I saw 11 bears on the AT, and maybe a dozen in Colorado in 41 years of hiking/backpacking there. BTW, there has never been a death due to a bear on the PCT, according to "halfmileanywhere"

Dave Sailer sent this account:

I've always been extremely cautious in bear country and have had no problems since I began backpacking in 1980.

I stay clean, keep my food wrapped in several layers of plastic bags to be as odor-free as I can make it, and eat where I camp only in the morning, right before leaving the area.

I have had all too many bad experiences with dogs though, now that you mention it. The latest was on one of the trails off of Margaret McKenney Campground near Olympia, WA, last fall. I was about half a mile in when three unattended dogs came running down the trail at me. They began barking. I shouted and clapped my hands. No good. There was nowhere to go, so I backed into what little trailside brush there was. Also no good.

The dogs formed a semicircle, but before they could surround me I pulled out my pocket-si zed canister of pepper spray and fanned out a cloud of it, which stopped them.

But just behind the dogs were two people on horseback, a man and a woman, both of whom began shouting at me in outrage. The man told me that he was armed and that if I sprayed the dogs again (i.e., continued to try protecting myself), he would shoot me.

I moved around them, going up trail a bit, and as I did so the man rammed his horse into me and repeated his threat. The woman was yelling at me the whole time. Fortunately the dogs had stood down by then.

I should have followed them out and called the sheriff (dog attack, two death threats, and one case of physical assault provable by the horse snot on the back of my jacket), but didn't want to continue the confrontation. I did get out alive, and without injury. That time. Luckily.

Bears I've encountered have been much more reasonable. I treat them with respect, give them no reason to mess with me, and they have always returned the favor.

By Rees Hughes

Bear encounters along the PCT are relatively rare . . . bear attacks are extremely rare.  The mystic of the aggressive, predatory bear is perpetuated by humor like the above and sensationalized stories in the media.  I have seen about half a dozen bears on the PCT (many more on other trails) over the years and have yet to have a negative experience.  [I am a huge advocate of the use of bear canisters, appropriate hanging of food in locations not requiring canisters, and minimizing cooking and sleeping in the same place.]

Taylor Y. Cardall and Peter Rosen, in their article "Grizzly Bear Attack" published in The Journal of Emergency Medicine documented 162 bear-inflicted injuries in the United States between 1900 and 1985.  Steven Herrero, a Canadian biologist, reported that only 23 people were killed by black bears between 1900 - 1980.  This compares to 15 people being killed every year by dogs. The majority of black bear attacks tend to be motivated by hunger rather than territoriality, and thus victims have a higher probability of surviving by fighting back rather than submitting. Unlike grizzlies, female black bears do not display the same level of protectiveness to their cubs, and will seldom (but it does happen) attack humans in their vicinity.

Over the years the majority of attacks have happened in national parks, usually near campgrounds, where the bears had become habituated to human contact and food. Along the PCT, the High Sierra is notorious for such bears although improved awareness (”don’t feed the bears”) and the widespread use of bear canisters and lockers (e.g, Rae Lakes has food lockers) has reduced (but not eliminated . . . see below) negative human/bear encounters.

You might enjoy Kim Todd’s story in the Oregon/Washington volume of The Pacific Crest Trailside Reader, “Bear Story” or Krystal Rogers’ “The Bear at Lyell Fork Creek” in the California volume (photo of Krystal above).