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Longboysfan
11-10-2017, 16:14
One thing I think could be added.
Near shelters put in some Bear Hangs so you do not have to rip apart the trees and landscape to find a good place for yours.

Maineiac64
11-10-2017, 16:40
Lots of shelters have bear cables and boxes.

SkeeterPee
11-10-2017, 17:14
Last week I was hiking south of Port Clinton and those shelters did not have them. I was thinking it would be nice to have a fund to get them installed at all the shelters. Some locals I talked to did not think there was any bear problem so saw no need. I really could not find any suitable trees so ended up with the food in the shelter as did others.

Sarcasm the elf
11-10-2017, 17:24
Alternately...
40892

Tennessee Viking
11-10-2017, 17:28
Voice it to the ATC and NPS.

Old Hiker
11-10-2017, 19:34
One thing I think could be added.
Near shelters put in some Bear Hangs so you do not have to rip apart the trees and landscape to find a good place for yours.

Pretty sure I never ripped apart trees or the landscape to find a good place to hang a bag 30 feet off the ground.

Christoph
11-10-2017, 20:32
Just sleep with it, I do and I'm still alive. ;)

swisscross
11-10-2017, 20:38
Pretty sure I never ripped apart trees or the landscape to find a good place to hang a bag 30 feet off the ground.

Never had a hang 30 feet either.

Sarcasm the elf
11-10-2017, 21:19
Pretty sure I never ripped apart trees or the landscape to find a good place to hang a bag 30 feet off the ground.
I certainly have, using a thin cord to haul a 14lh food bag over a limb virtually assures that the bark on the top of the limb is going to get cut into from the friction.

Slow Roller
11-10-2017, 22:04
Woodpeckers are pretty rough on those trees too.

shelb
11-13-2017, 19:36
While I enjoy bear poles and hangs, I understand they are expensive to put up. I will find a tree where those do not exist.

HooKooDooKu
11-13-2017, 22:15
Alternately...
40892
While I hated the added weight and the limited space of a bear canister while hiking the JMT, I must say that I loved how easy it made it to deal with food storage at night.

nsherry61
11-13-2017, 22:23
I certainly have, using a thin cord to haul a 14lh food bag over a limb virtually assures that the bark on the top of the limb is going to get cut into from the friction.
And so . . . this thread (https://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php/112951-New-safer-amp-easier-bear-bag-hanging-method?highlight=).

Sarcasm the elf
11-13-2017, 22:28
While I hated the added weight and the limited space of a bear canister while hiking the JMT, I must say that I loved how easy it made it to deal with food storage at night.
Over the years I've used a lot of methods, including sleeping with my food, and I have to say that even weighing in at 2Lbs, my Bearvault is by far the easiest and laziest method I've found, the fact that it's one of the most effective methods is just an added bonus.

Berserker
11-14-2017, 13:13
I have found on the AT (and elsewhere) that typically bear "hot spots" are already equipped with some type of food storage method (box, cables and/or poles). So even though I used to hang my food for many years I have gotten lazy in recent years and just sleep with it if one of these methods is not provided. I have yet (this is always the key word) to be harassed with the food in my tent. Note that I carry stuff that doesn't have strong odors, is packed in Ziploc bags, all of which is placed in a trash bag with the top closed and that's all placed in an OR sil-nylon dry sack.

Are new bear hot spots popping up that don't have food storage provided...sure. Could a random bear just wander in and become a problem...yes. This just hasn't been an issue in many years and a couple thousand miles of hiking so far.

Disclaimer: this is all based on my own empirical evidence, and not a detailed scientific study.

Berserker
11-14-2017, 13:15
While I hated the added weight and the limited space of a bear canister while hiking the JMT, I must say that I loved how easy it made it to deal with food storage at night.
I bought a bear canister for my 2013 JMT thru, and I have used it on the AT several times. It's heavier, but that's balanced out by it being easier to use and it makes a wonderful chair.

Cosmo
11-16-2017, 11:05
Most AT overnight sites with bear "problems" do get (eventually) some sort of system to keep your food separated from wildlife. OTOH, why isn't this the responsibility of the hiker instead of the trail manager or local club? Shouldn't hikers take responsibility for their own safety and protection of the local wildlife, rather than 'demanding' their 'needs' should be taken care of? Are we reaching the limits of "development" of overnight site infrastructure? That said, all 14 AT overnight sites in my state have bear boxes....

Cosmo

DownEaster
11-16-2017, 15:27
Most AT overnight sites with bear "problems" do get (eventually) some sort of system to keep your food separated from wildlife. OTOH, why isn't this the responsibility of the hiker instead of the trail manager or local club?
For the same reason local clubs designate tenting sites rather than leaving it up to the individual hikers: it's less wear and tear on the landscape. Lots of tree limbs die from bear bag lines repeatedly scraping their bark off, so a permanent food box/hang facility is a better idea than leaving it as the responsibility of the hiker.

HooKooDooKu
11-16-2017, 16:46
... why isn't this the responsibility of the hiker instead of the trail manager or local club?...
Of course it's the hiker's responsibility... and we'd live in a perfect world if everyone would be responsible hikers.

But from the point of view of a land manager, you have to account for the fact that there will always be a certain percentage of people who will not take responsibility, that will ignore rules they don't agree with or are too lazy to follow,or simply won't take the time to learn the rules and be ignorant.

So as a manager, you have to decide what you're going to do:

1. Nothing?
Perhaps what ever problem you're trying to deal with will only get worst... perhaps leading to a lawsuit.

2. Close the place down?
Sometimes you're mandate won't allow that, or a closure might simply be ignored.

3. Change the rules? (Like require bear canisters)
More rules might simply be ignored.

4. Spend money on increase enforcement?
If we had enough money to enforce the existing rules, there wouldn't be a problem.

4. Spend money on infrastructure that might make compliance more likely? (Bear boxes and Bear cables).
Make the rules simpler to obey and they are more likely to be followed.

GaryM
11-24-2017, 19:06
Ban hurricanes too, did you see what Irma did to those poor trees?

jgil
11-24-2017, 21:13
pretty sure all shelters in nj have bear boxes but people are still stupid and lazy. i always find food garbage everywhere. not that garbage should be left in the boxes but it's better than scattered all over. clean up your **** people and take it home with you. it's not hard to do.

Fredt4
12-04-2017, 17:38
Just sleep with it, I do and I'm still alive. ;)
Christof, it's totally irresponsible to suggest that hikers sleep with their food. Ok, there have been no incidents of bears attacking and devouring hikers because they slept with their food, but that's no reason to suggest it. If people would listen to your advice it is probable that someone will find themselves being devoured and they're going to blame you. Now just because there's no reason to believe that sleeping with your food is likely to lead to such an outcome is irrelevant to offering reasonable advice, it's just plainly irresponsible. I hope you find yourself in such a situation, though it's unlikely, and the bear(s) eat their share. Ok perhaps it's inprobable that such an event will occur but can you imagine the headlines should it happen, besides people demand that they be scared and proposing solutions that solve a problem is no where as useful as solutions that require money and time.

Sarcasm the elf
12-04-2017, 18:18
Christof, it's totally irresponsible to suggest that hikers sleep with their food. Ok, there have been no incidents of bears attacking and devouring hikers because they slept with their food, but that's no reason to suggest it. If people would listen to your advice it is probable that someone will find themselves being devoured and they're going to blame you. Now just because there's no reason to believe that sleeping with your food is likely to lead to such an outcome is irrelevant to offering reasonable advice, it's just plainly irresponsible. I hope you find yourself in such a situation, though it's unlikely, and the bear(s) eat their share. Ok perhaps it's inprobable that such an event will occur but can you imagine the headlines should it happen, besides people demand that they be scared and proposing solutions that solve a problem is no where as useful as solutions that require money and time.
As we all know that if there's one thing in this world that magically turns an otherwise timid black bear into a mindless killer thirsting for human flesh, it's a snickers bar inside an occupied tent. :rolleyes:

Redbird2
12-04-2017, 22:25
Just sleep with it, I do and I'm still alive. ;)

What you do when you're off by yourself is your business. Where I have issues is when folks who like to sleep with their food set up by me when I've done everything reasonably possible to avoid attracting bears.

Cosmo
12-05-2017, 09:03
So let's imagine a more likely scenario than being bear bait.

You've settled into your tent for the night, your food bag tucked in next to your sleeping bag. You nod off to dreamland. Several hours later you hear/feel something pushing against your tent--you can't see much because your headlamp isn't on. Maybe it's raining. Assuming it's a bear, you shout ,"Go away!". Fumbling for your headlamp you manage to get it into strobe mode. The noise stops, you hear some shuffling in the duff and you nod off again (somehow, even though your adrenaline is really pumping). Some time later, the same noise happens again, you shout, but the bear (well used to panicky hikers) just keeps on pushing into your tent--it's how she survives to feed her cubs, after all. Maybe digging a bit with her claws until she gets through the thin fabric (which is nothing compared to rotten log). You--trapped in your sleeping bag, and fumbling for your headlamp--can't even smack her on the nose, you just have to lay there while she paws over all your stuff, and drags your food to some more peaceful location (hopefully she just doesn't sit down and start eating next to your shredded tent). The next day, hungry and cold, tired, maybe wet, you get to head into town to replace your $500 tent (2 days via Fed EX), dry out, and buy more food. The bear continues on her travels through her territory, stopping back at that campsite again for another snack a few days later.

How is any of this a good outcome? For you, the bear, and your fellow hikers?

Of course, if this were a truly common scenario, we'd probably have a lot fewer AT hikers w/o bear canisters...

Cosmo


Christof, it's totally irresponsible to suggest that hikers sleep with their food. Ok, there have been no incidents of bears attacking and devouring hikers because they slept with their food, but that's no reason to suggest it. If people would listen to your advice it is probable that someone will find themselves being devoured and they're going to blame you. Now just because there's no reason to believe that sleeping with your food is likely to lead to such an outcome is irrelevant to offering reasonable advice, it's just plainly irresponsible. I hope you find yourself in such a situation, though it's unlikely, and the bear(s) eat their share. Ok perhaps it's inprobable that such an event will occur but can you imagine the headlines should it happen, besides people demand that they be scared and proposing solutions that solve a problem is no where as useful as solutions that require money and time.

LazyLightning
12-05-2017, 09:27
I've been hiking around CT and MA this year before my NOBO hike next year and I've found it hard to find a decent tree several times. I always hang it, even if its a lousy hang 2 feet from the main tree when I can't find good branches anywhere - I still keep it away from the tent. I actually got 2 stuck up in a tree which I feel terrible about but I did everything I can to try to get them down, ended up stretching the rope and cutting it as high as I can so it flings up and isn't an eye sore. I'll remember the spots and go back every year to see if they fell and clean it up.

I learned a good lesson on the last one, I couldn't find small rocks so I put in heavy stuff from my pack... some first aid stuff, tooth paste, batteries and now it's all stuck up in a tree. I could of just stuffed dirt in the bag and wet it if I really wanted weight... the 2 hangs I got stuck would of been good ones but it was a hard throw placement and a bunch of stuff to get stuck on around. I don't try for anything like that anymore, and for what it's worth I feel a lot worse about having to leave my crap in a tree then any loss it was to me.

Berserker
12-05-2017, 13:04
So let's imagine a more likely scenario than being bear bait.

You've settled into your tent for the night, your food bag tucked in next to your sleeping bag. You nod off to dreamland. Several hours later you hear/feel something pushing against your tent--you can't see much because your headlamp isn't on. Maybe it's raining. Assuming it's a bear, you shout ,"Go away!". Fumbling for your headlamp you manage to get it into strobe mode. The noise stops, you hear some shuffling in the duff and you nod off again (somehow, even though your adrenaline is really pumping). Some time later, the same noise happens again, you shout, but the bear (well used to panicky hikers) just keeps on pushing into your tent--it's how she survives to feed her cubs, after all. Maybe digging a bit with her claws until she gets through the thin fabric (which is nothing compared to rotten log). You--trapped in your sleeping bag, and fumbling for your headlamp--can't even smack her on the nose, you just have to lay there while she paws over all your stuff, and drags your food to some more peaceful location (hopefully she just doesn't sit down and start eating next to your shredded tent). The next day, hungry and cold, tired, maybe wet, you get to head into town to replace your $500 tent (2 days via Fed EX), dry out, and buy more food. The bear continues on her travels through her territory, stopping back at that campsite again for another snack a few days later.

How is any of this a good outcome? For you, the bear, and your fellow hikers?

Of course, if this were a truly common scenario, we'd probably have a lot fewer AT hikers w/o bear canisters...

Cosmo
Very nicely done. Although totally fictional, this is a nice detailed description of what realistically could happen if a bear comes into camp. From my own personal experiences (having a bear come near camp a couple of times) and 2nd hand accounts from others this is generally how things are likely to go down.

Berserker
12-05-2017, 13:42
This thread is a good example of the age old question of how to deal with one's food in the back country...there's no good solution unless bear storage is provided and people actually use it. The only alternative that would probably resolve most of the problem is to require people to carry canisters, but then the question becomes is food storage really an issue on most of the AT.

If there is not food storage provided then it becomes an exercise in properly storing food or mitigating risks. Let's say you have 20 people in a shelter area with few to no trees with easily accessible branches to do a proper hang. This is likely a heavily used area that probably attracts bears. What are all those people gonna do with their food? The answer is hang it on the strings in the shelter and/or keep it in their tents because some of them are lazy, some of them don't know how to properly hang it and some of them may want to do a hang but there's nowhere to easily do it. What's the risk here? You have 20 people in the area so I'm gonna hedge a bet that they can chase a bear or two off.

How about a solo hiker or a couple of hikers that set-up tents in a gap. Now you are in a lesser used area that may or may not have bears regularly checking it out. Here there may actually be a couple of trees to do a proper hang on, or one may just choose to carry low odor stuff and keep in their tent. The risk here is you have less people around, but likely a lesser chance a bear may roll in during the middle of the night.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the bottom line is if there is not proper food storage people are gonna be sleeping with their food. I was a teetotaler of proper food storage for several years. If there wasn't storage provided I was doing a PCT hang, which isn't easy. You have to find the right tree with the right branch, which can take a while, and then sometimes it takes several tries to get the cord run. Throw in that maybe you had a rough day, it's raining and you roll in after dark, and this can make hanging pretty challenging. I then started paying attention to people camping near me, and I don't have hard data on this but I would say that <10% hang their food when proper storage is not provided, and of those 10% only some fraction of them hang it properly. So now I went through all that trouble to hang my food, and Joe Billy Bob next to me has his in his tent.

So, all this to say we can debate this forever, but if proper food storage is not provided and used there’s gonna be individuals out there with food in their tents and/or in the shelters…I see it all the time. I agree with others that stated that it’s not the responsibility of the clubs or ATC to provide food storage, but then the issue becomes that without it most people are just not gonna take the time and effort to properly store it. So I say bravo to those states, parks and clubs that provide storage options.

In my opinion, the only way to really resolve this is to provide storage at all shelters and camp spots, or to make people carry bear canisters if this is really a perceived problem, which I don’t think it is along the majority of the AT. My personal "flow chart" for dealing with this is to use food storage if provided, if no food storage is provided I'll hang my food if it's an area with a bear problem or I have seen bear sign, and if I don't hang then I bag my food multiple times before it goes in my tent. It should be noted that I typically try to carry low odor stuff (i.e. freeze dried food, factory sealed items food, etc.).

Disclaimer: I'm not condoning keeping one's food in one's tent, I'm just providing my personal experience.

blw2
12-05-2017, 23:23
yeah, given that a high percentage of folks sleep with it,
how many tents actually get shredded during the night?
how many say over the last 10 years?

My gut tells me that the much more likely scenario that probably still very rarely happens, is some small rodent chewing in...or maybe a coon or possum

Another Kevin
12-06-2017, 19:07
The inconvenient thing about sleeping with your food is that you can't safely leave food unattended, basically ever.

Are you prepared to take your food with you if you have to get up in the night? The bear is scared of you, but once you've walked away from your tent to do your business, Bruin might well decide to investigate.

Of course, I'm the guy who's had a raccoon steal my pack (with no food in it) from out of a shelter while I was sleeping. (He woke me up because I had the pack under my feet for extra insulation. I also once had a pair of skivvies hanging in my tent vestibule in the vain hope they'd be drier in the morning, and a porky came under the rainfly and stole them. He didn't even wake me, but he left a quill or two in the bottom hem of the fly to let me know he was there.