9000 feet. As campers moved into the higher elevations, the bears followed.
To avoid bears while hiking, some people make noise as they go, because most American black bears are shy and will scramble off to avoid meeting you. Other people find noise-making intrusive, consider those who make noise rude, and accept the risk of meeting a bear. You will have to decide.
In camp, store your food properly and always scare bears away immediately. (See Food Storage.)
Plan Ahead: Avoid taking smelly foods and fragrant toiletries; they attract bears—bears have a superb sense of smell. Ask rangers and other backpackers where there are bear problems, and avoid those areas; also ask them what measures they take to safeguard food and chase bears away.
Carry a bear canister (see more below). If you need to counterbalance your food bags, practice the skill before you need it. After cooking, clean up food residue. Before going to sleep or leaving your camp, clean any food out of your gear and store it with the rest of your chow; otherwise, you could lose a pack to a bear that went for the granola bar you forgot in a side pocket. Don’t take food into your tent or sleeping bag unless you want ursine company. Store your smelly toiletries and garbage just as carefully as you store your food. Set up and use your kitchen at a good distance from the rest of your camp. Also make sure your food, even in canisters, is stored a good distance from your campsite.
Food Storage: Backcountry management policies now hold campers responsible for keeping their food away from bears. You can even be fined for violating food-storage rules. You’re also responsible for cleaning up the mess once you’re sure the bear won’t be back for seconds. And you have an ethical responsibility to keep bears from becoming pests, which may mean that they have to be killed.
Here are some food-storage suggestions that will help you do this:
Bear Canisters: The first ones were lengths of sturdy plastic pipe fitted with a bottom and a lid only a human can open. Today there are several more choices, including lighter-weight aluminum ones and still lighter ones of exotic aerospace materials. Using these canisters is the best method for protecting your food where bear boxes (below) aren’t available.Canisters aren’t perfect, but they work very well when used properly. Using a canister is much easier and more secure than counterbalance bearbagging. They make good in-camp seats, too.There’s also an extremely lightweight sack of bulletproof material, now available with an aluminum liner and with an odor-barrier inner sack. It is less secure than a canister, is slightly more difficult to use properly (but much easier than counterbalancing), and may not be approved for use in areas that require you to use a canister, like Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. You can check online or call the controlling agency(ies) to see if the areas through which you plan to pass permit use of these sacks. One of us has had good luck with them.The materials you receive with your permit will tell you whether canisters are required. If you don’t own a canister, you can rent one from either an outdoors store or perhaps from the agency that issues your permit.
Counterbalance Bearbagging: If you don’t have a bear-resistant food canister or access to a bear box where you camp, counterbalance your food. Note that in areas with severe bear problems, like most of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, counterbalance bearbagging is ineffective and probably against regulations.Assuming you’re traveling in an area where bears aren’t yet a severe problem, counterbalance bearbagging may protect your food not only from bears but from ground squirrels, marmots, and other creatures. It’s best to get to camp early enough to get your food hung while there’s light to do it. Counterbalancing is not completely secure, but it may slow the bear down. It gives you time to scare it away. When you get a permit, you may get a sheet on the counterbalance bearbagging technique. The technique is also well-covered in numerous how-to-backpack books. Practice it at home before you go.If a bear goes after your food, jump up and down, make a lot of noise, wave your arms—anything to make yourself seem huge, noisy, and scary. Have a stash of rocks to throw and throw them at trees and boulders to make more noise. Bang pots together. Blow whistles. The object is to scare the bear away. Never directly attack the bear itself. Note, however, that some human-habituated bears simply can’t be scared off.
Bear Boxes (Food Storage Lockers): Bear boxes are large steel lockers intended for storage of food only, and they will hold the food bags of several backpackers. Their latches, simple for humans, are inoperable by bears. Everyone shares the bear box; you may not put your own locks on one. Food in a properly fastened bear box is safe from bears; however, some boxes have holes in the bottom, through which, if the holes aren’t plugged, mice will squeeze in to nibble on your goodies.There are bear boxes at popular areas in Sequoia National Park and southern Kings Canyon National Park. Their locations and numbers, as well as regulations and a list of approved bear canisters, are available at or through links at www.nps.gov/seki/snrm/wildlife/food_storage.htm.The presence of a bear box attracts campers as well as bears, and campsites around them can become overused. However, it isn’t necessary for everyone to cluster right around the box. A campsite a few hundred yards away may be more secluded and desirable; the stroll to and from the bear box is a pleasant way to start and end a meal.Bear-box don’ts: Never use a bear box as a garbage can! Rotting food is smelly and very attractive to bears. Never use a bear box as a food drop; its capacity is needed for people actually camping in its vicinity. Never leave a bear box unlatched or open, even when people are around.
Above timberline: Up above the tree line, there are no trees to hang your food bags from. But there are still bears—as well as mice, marmots, and ground squirrels—anxious to share your chow. If you don’t have a canister or bulletproof sack (the latter only where legal) but must hang your food, look for a tall rock with an overhanging edge, from which you can dangle your food bags high off the ground and well away from the face of the rock. Unlike bears, marmots and other critters have not learned to get your food by eating through the rope suspending it.Another option is to bag your food and push it deep into a crack in the rocks too small and too deep for a bear to reach into—but be sure you can still retrieve it. One of us has had good luck with this technique; use it only above timberline. You may lose a little food to mice or ground squirrels, but it won’t be much.When dayhiking from a base camp where you can’t put your food in a bear box or leave it in a canister, it’s safer to take as much of it with you as you can.
If a Bear Gets Your Food: Never try to get your food back from a bear. It’s the bear’s food now, and the bear will defend it aggressively against puny you. You may hear that there are no recorded fatalities in bear-human encounters in recent Sierra history. Of course, this isn’t true: Plenty of bears have been killed as a result of repeated encounters. Every time a bear gets some human food, that bear is a step closer to becoming a nuisance bear that has to be killed. And there have been very serious, though not fatal, injuries to humans in these encounters.
If, despite your best efforts, you lose your food to a bear, it may be the end of your trip but not of the world. You won’t starve to death in the maximum three to four days it will take you to walk out from even the most remote Sierra spot. Your pack is now much lighter. And you can probably beg the occasional stick of jerky or handful of gorp from your fellow backpackers along the way. So cheer up, clean up the mess, get going, and plan how you can do it better on your next trip.
A Word About Cars, Theft, and Car Bears: Stealing from and vandalizing cars are becoming all too common at popular trailheads. You can’t ensure that your car and its contents will be safe, but you can increase the odds. Make your car unattractive to thieves and vandals by disabling your engine (your mechanic can show you how), hiding everything you leave in the car, and closing all windows and locking all doors and compartments. Get and use a locking gas-tank cap. If you have more than one car, use the most modest one for driving to the trailhead.
Bearproof your car by not leaving any food in it and by hiding anything
