[pct-l] Sleeping with food

Fri Apr 12 06:05:50 CDT 2013

Jeffery,
	Sleeping with food is generally not a good thing. It is not about my safety as much as feeding the occasional critter that crawls under my tarp. This could be a bad experience for the critter and rather startling to me in the middle of the night, IFF he could get by that week-old "dead" smell of active hiker. It ruins my sleep. For the 5 minutes of extra work in the evening, I know my food will be safe till I need it again in the morning. I sleep better knowing Mr. Coon won't enjoy it as much as I will. 

	One time in July, my guests included a bear cub. I was rather surprised to see his face in the flashlight beam, I thought it was another 'coon. They usually run off with any noise, usually just rolling over does it. I was surprised his mama allowed him into camp. The sow was around somewhere, but didn't see her. 

Coyote don't bother hanging around, too much, but at home they are known to raid the bird food, garbage, etc. I have to keep it locked up. I chased a pair through some dense pine on one occasion. Even they would not bushwhack through it and stayed on the trail. I've never have seen a big cat, though...probably just as well. I slept on a couple pinch bugs one time, you probably call them scorpions. They have a rather nasty sting, but don't usually bother food. I hate bugs in my food or in my shoes. Funny, I don't mind eating them once they get cooked, crawdads either... 

	I was fishing a ravine 20 years ago and poked a deer with my fishing rod. I am sure if she was on dry land, she would have kicked the hell out of me but I really couldn't resist laughing at her. She hopped a couple steps, turned her head and looked at me. Her hackles dropped and she waded across the pool and climbed out, in no particular hurry. I was no longer a threat. I trapped a porcupine in the middle of the Ausable River one time. I was a bit reluctant to gather quills, though...he was swaying back and forth on the rock and not looking too friendly. I was more cautious with him than with a bear, because he was trapped and he knew it. I poked him with the fishing rod and turned away. He watched me, lowered his fur, then swam downstream and away, realizing I wasn't going to chase him. The Amerindians used to call it counting coupe I think. And, it was a well known forest behavior to them.   

	Anyway, one of the campsites on the Oswagatchie *used* to have an outhouse. In winter months, it was common to use the outside, I guess. Most of the bottom was chewed away by a particularly fat porcupine and it was removed about 30 years ago. He would gnaw away for an hour at a time. An aluminum boat was left on Bug Lake after the owner did a quickie tar job along all the joints. I saw it laid out like an origami project after the porcupines/beaver got done with it one winter, not sure which was the culprit. The bloody critters LIKED the tar. Personally, I think it stinks... It is amazing what critters think of as food. Tar??? 

Mice ARE pesty. These guys are armed burglars! One actually bit my finger and I carry the scar to this day. Squirrels are almost as bad, just faster. I have a couple packs with holes in the bottom where they have chewed into the pack to get food in their wrappers. Unremarkable...you say. Well, I was walking with the pack ON at the time! The wife shoo'ed the bleeders. Anyway, it is not fear of night noises and critters that drives me to hang my food (though, I will say this is not *always* possible. Sometimes there are no trees around.) I just do not believe I should be sharing MY food with them. Anymore than I would ask them to share THEIR food with me...just ain't right. Simple common courtesy to the forest is all it is, really. A politeness that goes beyond simple fitting in, that part is easy. Like burying TP, it doesn't *have* to be done, it just makes things nicer for those that follow. I'll hang a bag to prevent some critter from learning how raiding a camp can net some food if I am down getting water.

	Playing with a loon on a high mountain lake, yup, loons like to play, is a fair example of being a part of things. Watching them play is nice. PARTICIPATING in that play, well that, my friend, is an indescribable feeling. They remember well. By September, they bring the loonling(well, it's better than loonatic) over to meet the strange human that played with them that summer. Calling in an owl at 0200. He watches diligently for the d at mn mice. They usually disappear after he shows up. Nice to have him around. He knows that I'll leave a mouse if I can catch one in the pot, I did once. This was a year later on the NPT. Raising, hmmm, it will be 11 generations of wild geese on the pond, the parents greet us with downed/straightened necks, wagging heads and breathy honks every spring. Walking on the water/wings spread, splashing and generally having a bit of a celebration at the meet up. After all, I help chase away predators. Doesn't always happen, either. But, I know one gosling is a goose that otherwise would be coyote food. They remember. It is about being part of nature and participating, not just fitting in and making a place. I try to keep the critters from hurting themselves. I hang my food, but it isn't out of fear that I do. Bear attacks are rarely fatal, even if it were to happen. Pain? Well at my age, every day has it's share of pain, not much to consider. But, I will not be a party to training critters to raid camps, thank you. I hang my food or use a bear ball.     
	My thoughts only . . .
		jdm
-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Olson
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2013 12:13 AM
To: pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] Sleeping with food

A regular contributor to the listserv said, "I would never consider sleeping with my food in bear country. I'm not a gambler. Not all bears are the same. If a bold and hungry bear that has become habituated to humans and their food happens to wander up from a vehicle accessible campground near your camp and smells your food, he might just go for it. 
People have been maimed and killed in those circumstances. Why take a chance?"
______________________________________________________

Keep this perspective in mind.  You have to make a choice about sleeping with your food.  As I said earlier today, most people just sleep with it and don't worry about bears.  Let me share a story.

I was camped near Deception Pass in Washington and it was a very quiet night - no wind at all.  I always sleep with my food unless I'm with a friend who's more fear based than I.  We  have a couple ounces of bourbon and throw the rope tied to a rock over a tree limb and laugh.  
Part of the camping ritual.

I'm lying in my tent, right in the space between sleeping and being awake, when I hear some noises.  I'm immediately awake - my awareness straining to make out where the noise is coming from and what's making it.  My heart is pounding with adrenaline.  The hillside is fairly steep, and I can imagine a bear out there, slowly making his way towards my tent.

I listen so intensely I find myself floating out of the tent up the hill to a point 100' or so above me.  I have a vantage point, a perspective, that looks through the trees down on me in my tent and a bear grubbing 75' or so up the trail from the tent.  He's just clawing a log, grunting and ripping it, and eating stuff out of it.

He glances at my tent every once in a while and returns to his feeding.  
This goes on for a minute or so - I'm guessing because I feel "out of time" - before I relax and my vantage point dissipates and I'm back in my tent.

I can still hear the bear - but he's moving away now - up the trail.  I lie there and a sense of peace envelopes me.  I'd been hiking for 35 years then, and had always had a minor "FEAR" of bears.  It wasn't strong and it didn't determine how I acted. Nonetheless, they were always the "other" and hence I need to watch out for them - they were a threat of a kind.

What I realized and felt for the first time in my life was part of the larger wilderness reality.  The bear had no interest in me and my pillow of food.  I was part of his world and he monitored me - bear noses are incredibly acute.  I fit into the forest in a way I'd not before.  I had "place" in the wilderness.

I respect the power of bears, especially if I'm between a Mom and her cub.  However, I'm part of their world, and I don't fear them. I don't fear coyotes or wolves or mountain lions either.  We share the wilderness - and each has a place within it.

It's mice skittering across my face in the middle of the night when I'm cowboy camping that gets me.  But I realize I've put down my ground cloth in one of their "runs" or paths.

What's funny, is most night noises end up being deer or bighorn sheep licking up my urine...

Jeffrey Olson
Rapid City, SD

_______________________________________________
Pct-L mailing list
Pct-L at backcountry.net
To unsubcribe, or change options visit:
http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l

List Archives:
http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/pct-l/
All content is copyrighted by the respective authors. 
Reproduction is prohibited without express permission.