Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Any Bears?

I'm going up on July 3rd and 4th, anyone seen any bears? I was there two years ago and there was so much hype on bears that I didn't even see a bird! Let me know!

Hi Magic,

I also have a Mt Whitney overnight permit for 4th July. Actually I am looking for a hiking partner, so can do the hike together. Would you be interested? I am in Bay Area. You can contact me at 408 431 8687

thanks,
rp

coriolis15,
We are going up the Mountain on the 3rd and coing down on the 4th. Will this work for you?

Yes, there are bears! We had a bear experience the night of June 10-11th at the Portal.

Five of us camped in two tents at the Backpacker's Camp that night. We each rented our own bear canister from the Portal Store. I and one other person filled our bear canisters. The others put their food in the bear boxes, planning to fill the canisters in the morning. We put the canisters on the picnic table next to tent sites 7 and 8 for the night and went to bed around 9 PM.

Around 10:30 PM we heard a ruckus at the picnic table. My brother looked out his tent and saw a bear on the table messing with the canisters. After a few minutes he (the bear) went away. Around 11 I got up to use the john and picked up all the canisters off the ground and put them back on the table. The bear didn't get any of the canisters open.

Around 1 AM, I heard a ruckus out at the picnic table again. I didn't feel like getting up, but when I got up in the morning to pick up the canisters, one was missing: MY full one! We looked all over for it for 10-15 minutes. Finally, I found it way down the fill by the parking lot to the east. It must have rolled all the way down there. It wasn't open! So I'm now a believer in the usefulness of those canisters. In the future, I'll put the canisters in a bear box overnight. By the way, the bear must have really worked on our canisters: the picnic table was deeply scratched, and my canister was dirty and scratched up, too.

We stayed overnight at Trail Camp the next night and didn't see any bears.

Hi MagicBob,

Its not going to work. b'coz mine is

Entry date: 07/04/03(overnight)
Exit date:07/05/03
entry point: Main MT Whitney trail
exit point: Main Mt Whitney trail
group size: 1

Anyways, I will be staying at Lone Pine on 07/03/03 collecting my permit that day.
Starting trail on 4th(friday) early morning. Planning to stay at trail camp on 4th. and want to do the summit starting again early morning 5th(saturday). Back to the parking lot 5th evening.

Anybody having 4th 5th plans here.? Lets go together... 408 431 8687

thanks,
rp

Yes there are bears. I was at campsite 44 on the nights of 6/26-6/28. A bear visited the campsite at 8 PM the first night (and left some drool on the table where we had just finished eating the barbecued salmon). On our last morning there, a bear was playing in the stream right near the campsite. We watched it for about 5 minutes before it ran off. Everyone should definitely take all precautions.

I have a friend who WANTS to see a bear, and we're going in late Sept.. What are our chances then?

I was just there this weekend (6/27-6/39) and didn't see any bears. Apparently there is a cub that has been seen around a lot lately though and they had their first car break in of the season last weekend. We did leave our bagels out all day (by accident) on Saturday while we hiked and came back to find them intact. Be careful of the squirles though. They stole our large box of matches and ripped into them. We found them behind a tree about 50 feet from our camp.

Thank you all for replying back and we will use bear cans and will take extra precautions to prevent the return of any bears.

Cappy, leave a couple of Big Macs in your open car, go behind a tree and wait. Shouldn't take too long to bring in a bear.

In Porcella and Burns California 14er book they say, "...Bears have not yet been sighted in the North Fork of Lone Pine Canyon...". I saw a fat brown bear just below the ledges on Tuesday evening. I was making my way down just past that little waterfall and i could smell urine really strongly and i was wondering who would be retarded enought to pee on the trail and i looked up to my right and no more than 10 feet from me was the bear. We stared at eachother for about 3 seconds and then he walked away like one of the countless girls i asked to go to the prom a few years ago. I started booking it down the trail because i was a little scared and it was getting dark but the bear beat me to it and crossed about 30 feet in front of me. He was really moving.

On my stay this week at the portal some idiot from oregon was stupid enough to leave a McDonalds bag with food in it in his van. Well that didn't stop the bear from breaking in his rear side miror to get the goodies. I was there for 3 days and the owner of the white van still hadn't returned. What a suprise he is going to have

I came down the morning of 7-24 from Trail Camp. My van was parked in the overflow lot 500' from trailhead. There were chip, co**** and food wrappers of all kinds in the parking lot. At first I was mad because I thought someone littered, but looking closer, I discovered 3 cars broken into by bears.

The first car had a sleeping bag hanging out the broken window. Apparently the owner thought he could fool the bear by covering food with it. He must have had an entire grocery bag full by the looks of the empty wrappers. The bear ate the stuff in the lot, did not take it away. Two other cars had smashed windows, one, a Toyota Rav had a bent window frame. That's gonna cost some big bucks to fix. All because the drivers ignored the warnings and tried to "hide" food. I would post the pictures here, but I don't know how.

Camped overnight at Summit Camp on the seventh and saw NO Bears or evidence of any Bear activity. The ranger came by the camp as well and told us that there had not been a lot of Bear activity lately. (But that doesn't mean there not out there! Be smart and listen to what you're told. It could save your life!)

Camped overnight at the Portal on 8/6. A man at campsite #6 told us that the two teens with him, had not properly locked their bear box and a bear was all over the box around 4am.
Camped overnight at Trail Camp 8/7. A guy staying in a tent on the N. side of the path through the camping area, just W. of the solar toilet, told of a bear visiting in his "camp". A guy in my group was up at 4am 8/8, using a flashlight to look for an outdoor restroom. He too said he saw the bear.
The Portal store sells the cans for $50 and rents them for $2/day. REI sells the same Garcia brand cans for $78 ($60 when on sale). The Lone Pine/Whitney Ranger station rents them for $5/trip. $2-$5 is a lot cheaper than losing all your food to the marmots....even if there weren't any bears around.

I put the pictures that Sherry spoke about on August 7th on my website that show the car damage from the bears on July 24th. Three cars had their windows broken and food taken as you can see from the photos. Click on this thumbnail photo to see the photos.
<a href="http://gary.mggm.net/photos/whitney/bears"></a>

There can be bears anywhere on the mountain, but they are most frequently spotted where there are the most people. So there have been several sightings at the portal, a few at trail camp and almost none on the mountaineers route. In general, bear risk declines with altitude.

There was an interesting article in the <a href="http://www.latimes.com">LA Times</a> recently about how bear canisters and lockers are tested.

• -----------------------------
  The Packers Take On the Bears
  -----------------------------
  Keeping campers' food from prying paws is not easy. Apparently reliable receptacles must pass an unusual quality-control test.
  
  If you want to make good in the bear-canister business, you go up to Folsom with hat in hand and pay your respects to Fisher, a larcenous, no-neck, knuckle-dragger who could take your face off with a lazy flick of his wrist.
  
  The complete article can be viewed at: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-bear15aug15004424,1,4479465.story">Packers vs Bears</a>

I was up at Trail Camp September 20-21 and saw bear tracks leading to the rectangular shaped pool of water just off the trail about 200 yards below the solar toilets. The tracks appeared fresh and I was surprised to see them so high on the trail.