Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board storage & avoiding bear issues

further to the post of JoelD about "Bears", my crew of four will have "regular" belongings and a luggage piece each besides our pack items which we'll take up the trail on a three day permit. coming from out of town, making effort to acclimatize on two practice hikes each day before entering the zone, and having a rent vehicle, the concern is what to do with the "regular" pieces which by then will contain sweated, soiled apparel. For sure want to avoid bear getting interested in those human smells and damaging the vehicle, but am perplexed as to where and what to do with the items. Any ideas? how about some place(s) in or around Lone Pine to drop them for a fee for three days, when they can be picked up the day we leave the area? A serious issue I'm concerned about. Any help, comments, experience very welcomed.

Well, I left "dirty/smelly" clothes in my car without problem both at the Portal and while doing about 2 weeks of hiking in Yosemite. The rangers did not mention that as a problem. At Yosemite they will fine you if you violate the rules and attract bears. You might refrain from using deordorant on hikes or other clothes, actually (see below)

Although, it will be suggested that things like toothpaste, fragrant shampoo and DEORDORANT be stored in the food lockers.

There will NOT be enough room for suitcases - there is barely enough room for food stuffs and coolers. I don't know if you stay at one of the motels in town if they would store your stuff for a couple of days.

Sadly, Fred, the reply (from our motel) was "no" they won't store our items due to "liability" issues. Understand about the fragrant items and the bear storage locker, but still looking for an answer, solution, or some more ideas. Anyone?

Brickie:

Don't know if you've already tried this, but I'd again pursue the motel angle but with an offer to sign a release of liability, thereby absolving the motel of responsibility in the event of theft or damage. Again, if you're talking about "sweaty" and "soiled" clothes, the chance of theft or damage would likely be minimal, and the motel's liability issues would be resolved. If, however, they are concerned with what's actually in the pieces of luggage, you might also offer to let them search the luggage pieces first before storing them. Just a thought.

Honestly, I cannot imagine a hotel signing a release of liability form. These folks are not lawyers and I doubt they have their own forms for this purpose. It's much safer to "just say no."

Good luck on that angle.

Just a quick follow-up:

A formal document or printed "form" isn't really necessary -- a hand-written statement releasing the motel of liability for your luggage/clothes, so long as it's signed by both you and an authorized motel rep, will work just fine. While I agree that it's a lot easier for a motel guy to just say "no", you might get lucky. I'd at least give it a shot. Good luck.

Dave (et al) thanks for the thoughts, I'm a Houston attorney and I already tried the "I'll sign anything you want" route to no avail. Right now, I'm trying to bark up another tree in hopes of finding a solution, but I'm STILL interested in anything "old pros" might tell me or places they might direct me to dump the pedestrian gear (including the deodorant, etc) whilst we're on the trail.....

Mail it to yourself "General Delivery" to the Lone Pine Post Office.

I think that if you take the fragrant items out of the suit case(s) and leave them in the truck you'd be okay.

I left a whole bunch of stuff under the "window-shade" cover for my subaru outback without any problems including a daypack with lots of ODOR (I've never hosed it down), a tent (small car camping tent), thermarest, lantern, etc and lots more. All food and odor stuff and cooler was removed and left in the public lockers at the parking lot at the trailhead (it was very crowded).

I had cleaned out the car in advance of the trip and tried making sure that there were no crumbs or food evidence. I also removed the car TRASH BAG. I left nothing visible that those intelligent bears might think hid food.

I guess I like the "mail it to yourself" idea if the post office will work with that altho it might be $$$$.

In any event, have a great trip.

We did Whitney in Sept. of 2000 and 2001, staying at the Dow Villa both times. We left our duffels with name tags attached in a storage room (along with other people's luggage) with no problems. If that's where you're staying, they may have had a bad experience (or a visit from Homeland Security) and discontinued the favor.

Actually, I like the idea of shipping everything. But why not take some boxes and just ship it all home via UPS? Just leave a clean change of clothes in the car for the trip home.

Dow Villa it is! - that's interesting and is exactly what I was trying to accomplish with them (and perfectly willing to pay some storage $ if necessary). Do you recall a name you may have dealt with getting that done? You may be correct about the post 9-11 aspects of things. More things (even such simple matters) than we realize have been affected. Thanks for the input Cloudripper

Good luck with your storage issue, Brickie. Sounds like the Villa's the best bet. As is the case at airports these days (i.e., post-9/11), be prepared to leave your luggage unlocked, just in case.

We'll be looking for your group bright and early on the 21st!!

I have left smelly clothing items in tents, packs, etc. many times and never had a bear problem. They are not attracted to humans (which make for lousy eating), but rather food, particularly sweet smelling food. So the only thing I would be concerned about is if you spilled a coke on your pants or shirt, in which case a quick trip to the laundrette will take care of it.

I'm heading next week for 2 weeks in the backcountry at Yellowstone and will not have a bear box, bear containers, etc. (not needed or required at Yellowstone). Will just hang my food from bear poles and leave my clothes in the tent. The back country rangers, with whom I'm hiking, do the same thing regularly and don't have bear problems.

Thanks SierraSam, that insight sheds a good deal of light. It's obviously not the clothes I'm concerned about, but a ripped up rented Ford Explorer on my dime, with a possible consequence of having it towed off while I'm on the trail. I guess the route to go, if I'm unable to come up with some other solution, is to pack all smellies like deordorant, personal toiletries, and such in one satchel with name and date of return and put it in the bear box at the Portal. Presently, I'm still looking for that "other" solution. Thanks all.

I guess my point is that "smellies" alone are really not generally the issue since that is not what bears are looking for. They want food and admittedly mistake some other things like toothpaste for food. I've not heard of deoderant atracting bears. In general, I would be more worried about things that have sugar or other sweetners in them for taste (hence the issue with toothpaste). There should be room in the bear box for the small number of items that bears might consider to be food.

Water bottles should not be left in view inside the car. Bears know that water bottles sometimes have good things like Kool Aid in them.