[pct-l] Smart bears

[Steve Courtway]

As stated, spending a couple hours trying to counterbalance your food in the 
dark until 2:00 a.m. after hiking all day is a real hoot !!!

s.c.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tortoise" <Tortoise73 at charter.net>
To: <joph at piedmontbsa.org>
Cc: <karsten.n.hazelett at smithbarney.com>; <pct-l at backcountry.net>; 
<Slyatpct at aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Smart bears


> Years ago I recall someone was selling a commercial version of this. I
> bought such a cleat and played around with it but couldn't figure out
> how to work it in the woods.
>
> Years ago I led a Sierra (Club) Singles trip to Rancheria Falls in
> Yosemite where we used the counter balance method for our group food.
> Bears tried to get the food but all they did was damage the tree. Maybe
> the bears are smarter now. However the counter balance method depends a
> lot on finding a suitable limb on a suitable tree; often hard to find.
> Also when counterbalancing the food, one should loosely coil the free
> end of the line and lay it over the lower bag being raised; and leave a
> loop dangling down so one can use a limb or pole to pull the free end
> down when one is ready to lower the food. This eliminates a line hanging
> where a bear and pull on it and perhaps break the line.
>
> But as others have noted, counterbalancing apparently doesn't work very
> well any more in the Sierras.
>
> ----------
> Tortoise
>
> <> He who finishes last, wins! <>
>
> I switched to Mac OSX rather than fight Windows
> Using Mozilla Thunderbird  http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
>
> Jo Pegrum Hazelett wrote:
>> Hi Sly-- I had my husband answer this for you-- (BTW-- I'm Josie)
>>
>> Hello Sly and Donna,
>>  Bears can and do grasp with their fore paws--we've seen it up close and
>> personal , in this case a cub yanking on the tag-end of a line in his 
>> paw.
>> We have never lost food to bears, even when others in the vicinity lost
>> theirs using more customary methods.  Like Josie said, we have actually 
>> had
>> 40 face-to-face encounters with bears, the majority of which were in
>> Yosemite, and not all of those incidents were controversies over our food
>> bags.  The clamcleat method is ingenious, but I didn't invent it, I got 
>> the
>> idea from a long-time backpacking and sailing friend who was a forester 
>> and
>> former Scoutmaster who is now in his 80's and has hiked thousands of 
>> miles
>> in Yosemite, the Sierra, and places beyond (most western states). 
>> Whatever
>> works for anyone is best.  Our experience with the clamcleat vs
>> counterbalance method is that the clamcleat wins hands down.  Josie is
>> right...unless it's a well designed canister, everything else is just a
>> delaying tactic.
>> Missing the long trail,
>> --Kerry
>>
>>
>>
>>   _____
>>
>> From: Slyatpct at aol.com [mailto:Slyatpct at aol.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 9:39 PM
>> To: joph at piedmontbsa.org; pct-l at backcountry.net; dsaufley at sprynet.com
>> Cc: karsten.n.hazelett at smithbarney.com
>> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Smart bears
>>
>>
>>
>> joph at piedmontbsa.org writes:
>>
>> My husband used a clam cleat like sailors use
>> for securing the sheets on a sailboat to run the bag up the tree, then he
>> threw the rope up so it wasn't on the ground. If we had bear visitors and 
>> we
>> were unlucky enough to have the bear snag the rope and pull on it, all 
>> that
>> happened was that the bag would be cinched up higher on the rope.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>   _____
>>
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