I'm going to have to rethink the tree limbs I deem too thin for a bear to climb and steal my food bag.
I'm going to have to rethink the tree limbs I deem too thin for a bear to climb and steal my food bag.
They have been know to break smaller limbs that are too small and topple saplings.
I can’t relate.
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Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Now that's funny Sarcasm the elf!
Gives new meaning to "bear canister"
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They will climb anything that doesnt bend like spaghetti.
The can chew off anything under 3" or so too
There used to bear family near a construction site I worked on. I had to hang around there keeping an eye on the construction and had a good view of momma bear and babies climbing up Poplar trees and sitting in a crotch where they could pull in branches and eat the poplar buds in the spring as they are about the earliest thing they can eat in the spring while there may still be snow on the ground. They would hang out for hours as long as the sun was out.
That video of the bear climbing across a line to get at food is eye opening. Might just be time for a bear keg.
Ok, I get it. Hanging food is an illusion of safety for the food. Time for a bear keg.
I think there's a definite tendency to forget that climbing in general, and spending lots of time in trees in particular, was a huge part of the natural selection process for black bears. I don't suppose they're truly arboreal, but they're darned close. They are uncannily good climbers. In forty years of backpacking I've only seen bears three times, and every time was when I was looking up.
That video of the bear climbing across a line to get at food is eye opening. Might just be time for a bear keg.
this happens in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as well...
down at Cataloochee-----they have (or had) pictures of bears doing the same thing to get over to food bags...
bears have also learned to shake the cables to knock the bags down....
that why i hate the open hook system that the cables have.....need to carabiner it on the cable and not rely on the hook....
I use the PCT method, which i believe makes it more challenging for a bear, but not infallible. I recently moved to New Hampshire from Florida and find bear bagging much more difficult in New England because of different tree structure. I'm contemplating a change to a canister, but don't want the weight or bulk.
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Can't wait to see all the terrible hangs at the start of the trail this year
Late summer a few years ago I was doing loop hike in GSMNP using Chestnut Branch, AT, Balsam Mt., Mt. Sterling and Baxter Creek. Going southbound on the AT near Mt. Cammerer I passed by a black cherry tree that was below the trail with the canopy almost level with the trail.
I could hear limbs breaking and see the foliage moving. I was close enough to see the cherries in the tree but couldn't clearly see the bear through the leaves. It had to have heard me or more likely smelled me. However it continued to break limbs in the tree as if I wasn't even there. I guess it was zoned in on the cherries.
I always loved seeing people who excitedly "hung" their bear bag by sliding it onto a branch about head high. If you can reach it that easily, then...