Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Day Hike Bear Canister

Does anyone know of an approved bear canister that is (really) small for a day hike?

Will the bear swallow it whole??

Why do you need (or want) a bear cannister for a day hike?

The bear cannisters are designed to be big enough so the bear can't pick it up. Typically you only need a cannister when you are leaving your food unattended such as when you are sleeping. If it's in your pack, and your pack is with you, you should be okay.

Sierra bears are agressive, but I've never heard of a bear waylaying a person as they are hiking. If you stop to eat and your food is out, keep an eye on it and have some rocks handy. Don't leave your daypack unattended.

The reason I was wondering about a small canister for a day hike, is I wasn't sure if it was manditory to have one. In other words, is a ranger was allowed to give me a citation for not having one even on a dayhike? Although I feel I'll probably be okay with lots of people on the trail and the general "tradition" the bears understand about people on the trail.

Here is a guy that almost got a ticket from a ranger over a bear canister while hiking in the Sierras, although I don't know whether it was a day-hike:
http://www.thru-hiker.com/articles.asp?subcat=1&cid=83

I agree with having rocks/sticks handy. This worked with me when some tough dogs were around me by Wolfskill Falls in the L.A. area. I just hit a couple of pieces of metal together and the dogs stayed away.

If a bear approaches you while on a day hike in the Sierra then the animal is either totally starved or rabid. In that case you just drop your food and walk away slowly.

A ranger will not give you a citation for not carrying a cannister while on a day hike as they are not required. You will have to worry about chipmunks and birds taking your food more than bears.

You don't need a cannister for day hikes. the purpose of a bear canister is so that you can put your food (and toothpaste, and suntan lotion ...) somewhere away from you while you sleep such that a bear can't eat it. There is no requirement that they need to be big enough so a bear can't pick the up (if you can pick it up, a bear can too), only that a bear can't break into it. The specific testing methodology starts with:

If a container passes a visual inspection, a field trial will be conducted using captive black bears at a California zoo. The Zoo test is the first step in getting the canisters in the hands of bears. It's a preemptive strike to see how well the canister will hold up in the field. The container must pass the following test:
A container is filled with odorous foods, weighted to approximate actual use conditions, smeared with honey on and around entry points and others seams, and presented to one or more black bears who have had their daily meals withheld on the day of the test. Over the course of the test, the bears need to perform the following acts on the container:

Biting and clawing at the container for a combined period of 30 minutes or more.
Rolling, dropping, shoving and other rough play with the container for a combined period of 1 hour or more.

Sounds like in the bear container test those poor bears are starved and just looking to eat a meal.. I think that it's likely I WILL be okay without a bear container since the bears I will be by will likely be more well fed than those poor zoo bears!

Thanks for the information on the day hike bear containers and how it is okay with rangers.

I still wonder if a hungry bear wouldn't just swallow a small bear container whole.

Don't forget about the marmots....

If you think that the bear in the wild are better fed, you should see some of the pictures where they ripped the doors off of cars to get the food inside. There was a bear bag (Ursack) that was used in the wild for awhile, but was later banned by the rangers because the wild bears found that they could just chew it.

Actually, I've used the Ursack (original) for several years, and never had a problem. The issue was that bears got into it. (seam wore out).

BUT, these were not "wild" bears, but "Park" bears, which are habituated to people. The wild bears take off if you make your presence known. A Park bear will start a conversation. They will also spend hours worrying away at the Ursack, and it will eventually fail. Wild bears will not do that.

It is also unfailing against rodents and other animals.

Personally, I will use an Ursack where ever it is legal as bear protection.

What I still find astonishing is that "bear-bagging" is still recommended as a reasonable measure, in some areas It is not.

Ken: my experience with "wild" bears is different from yours. I've been in some very remote areas where the bears will still approach camp drawn by the smell of food even though there are people around. I think the issue is more "hungry bears" vs. "less hungry bears". I agree that "park bears", especially around Yosemite, have learned that the easist way to get food is around people and are pretty fearless. I've heard rangers in other areas talk about how Yosemite actually help create their own problem by taking those bears and just moving them a few miles away where they come right back, with more experience and less fear, and keep repeating their rewarded food seeking behavior.

Well, the Parks have changed their policy. They no longer relocate bears, a policy that does not work.

Now, if they have an aggressive bear, they kill it.

Ken - that policy differs by park. Some do that, some have a 2 strikes policy, some relocate very far away.

We are hiking the JMT from Onion Valley to Portal in September. We will be in the Whitney zone only one day (not overnight). Do we need a bear cannister legally? Are bears a problem on the JMT?

RT,
Legally you will need them out of Onion Valley. It is as much a SEKI requirement as a Whitney zone one. There are metal bear boxes at a few of the popular camping spots along the way such as Tyndall Creek and Vidette Meadow. You can get a list of these locations on <a href="http://www.nps.gov/seki/">SEKI's web site</a>.
I haven't had any problems on the JMT with bears but there certainly have been cases of food snatching.

Scott,
Is this requirement just in the area around Onion Valley or is it for anywhere on the JMT? If we do not have them, what is the fine?
RT

Last summer I didn't see ONE bear on my JMT hike, but in the past, the areas that we seemed to have the most encounters were Yosemite (of course) and the JMT segment from Onion Valley to Whitney. One trip we spent the whole night chasing bears away at Kearsarge Lakes; we've also had a couple encounters at Vidette Meadows.

I think the bear boxes are a great idea... personally, though, I don't like to use them for two reasons:

1) Scott's right... they are placed in the "more popular camping spots", so there are just too many people/camp spots around the boxes. I go backpacking to get away from all that.

2) If you're rellying on them as your sole form of bear protection and the boxes are full, you're screwed. There were several times coming in to Kearsare Lakes or Tyndall Creek where the boxes were full; if you didn't get there early, you were out of luck.

I think sometimes I sound like an advertisement for the "Bearikade", but (especially on solo trips) the two pounds are worth the peace of mind.

Here in the Smoky Mountains we still hang our food with good success. Does hanging not work well in the Sierras?

hanging works fine anywhere if you do it properly (high enough up, far enough out and on a limb that the bear can't climb), but I believe that it is not permitted at Whitney. Pure speculation on my part, but I suspect those regs are due to the fact that there are a large number of people at Whitney, many of whom don't have wilderness experience, together with a fair number of bears used to being near people. The result likely would be too many bears meet people food incidents if they didn't require canisters.

RockyTop, hanging is quite problematic in the Sierra. For one, you are often above treeline on the JMT, and above Mirror Lake on the main Whitney Trail. Hard to bear-bag without trees!
Also, as one goes higher, the trees are much more stunted, thus decreasing the possible "good" trees.

You can go from Onion Valley to Whitney without a bear can, but you will have to plan carefully, and travel swiftly. For example, you will have to make it over Kearsarge the first day, and either to Kearsarge lakes or Vidette Meadow, to use a bear locker. There is no bear locker at Guitar Lake, nor are there any trees! So your last day, you'd have to hike from Crabtree to top, to the Portal....quite a hike with backpacks.