Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Ursack loses conditional approval........again?

SS,

Sorry, I mis-read the park name. What exactly do they do in Yellowstone to "not allow their bears" to get human food?

I don't know about Yellowstone, but they tried for years to keep the bears away from human food in Jellystone Park and it just didn't work. Some of the specimens were "smarter than the average bear."

My first post in this thread gave the rules in Yellowstone, not Yosemite. Yellowstone has designated campsites which you are required to use, poles in many sites and a fee for all camping.

Dale B. Dalrymple
http://dbdimages.com
http://stores.lulu.com/dbd

Back to the thread topic...



I assume no one is saying what the nature of or cause of the failures was? I suspect it had to do with having to tie the overhand knot against the top flap of the bag and folks not doing it properly, or not cinching the bag down good and tight first, thus leaving an opening that could be taken advantage of. (Reason I think that is it's odd that it's apparently failing in the field, but survived the bear in the zoo that they let work the bear cans over as part of the approval process. Must be related to use then.)

Or, was it more to do with the incident on the North Fork that Steve Larson posted about where (it was suspected) a marten ripped his Ursack to shreds?

I hope the SIBBG isn't basing their ruling on just Mr. Larson's report as it was never actually determined that it was a bear that did the damage. Evidence seemed to indicate something else. Also, he was not using the version w/the liner.

When the president of the company responded to Mr. Larson's post (see Ursack Failure Thread), back in August, he said:




Either way, what a drag! My wife and I sure enjoyed using the Ursack w/the aluminum liner this year. Much lighter and easier to pack and manage than one of the "hard" bear cans. It was truly a pleasure to use. I sure hope they can address whatever the issue was. Sigh.

BTW, a friend and I were up on Whitney last May, when it was still pretty cold, and took a BearVault. After sitting out overnight (in the teens), took the two of us, and a cup of boiling water poured on the threads to get the darn thing open! What a pain.

Backpacking Light Magazine had a thread in their forum about the Palisades EST earlier this year. Some of the comments were by one of the owners of Wilderness-Solutions.

There was even some unemotional discussion of the topic that you might like to read.

Below is the link:

Backpacking Light Forum

If they get into human food, they are tagged and relocated outside of the park.

I use an electric fence when I camp in the arctic.

We were awakened one evening by the approach of a brown bear and when he reached the fence he got a pretty good shock and fled the area at a fast run. This was our only real-life experience with the fence and I am glad it worked. It may have saved us from being dinner since brown bears tend to prey on humans at night.

We keep our food in a bear container although it is not required in the Alaska bush and the fence is there to protect us and not the food.

It's pretty tough to get a good night of sleep in bear country and the lightweight fence has really been a positive development.
I do carry a 12Ga shotgun, just in case.

My fence charger is Australian made and puts out 10KV from 2 AA batteries. I believe it cost $75 a couple of years ago. Your currency exchange rate may vary. I bought electric fence wire (multi strand) and portable (fiberglass) fence poles from a farm supply store for $30. My total was about $125 with shipping.

For a lot less money you can put a fence around anything and have nearly 100% protection. The flipside is that your weight will increase, but I split the weight amongst the campers to share them load.

I've had the pleasure of coming in contact with an electric fence with the top of my head (don't ask). It didn't hurt one bit but it scared the bejeezus out of me. Felt all tingly for a few minutes afterwards () . If it could be shown to solve the bear/human problem it certainly would seem to be a humane method.

My brother peed on an e-fence when he was a kid.

I still chuckle when I think about it.