3rd Gen owner and his pet grizzly

No bear canisters? I've always been skeptical of hanging food or packs. Like you said they are smart. Just like opening car doors, bears in some areas will recognize rope or string used to tie up bear hangs and know that if they break the rope the hang will drop right to them.


This was a sign posted near the PCT around Kearsarge pass. I can confirm they won't run away just with noise. They'll just stand there and stare at you, and maybe mosey off.




On my trip in September I was cowboy camping near a lake. Woke up in the morning and was just laying there waiting for the sun to peak over the mountain and warm things up. I was laying on my side facing to the left of the pic. When I rolled over onto my back all I saw was a flash of black fur in the air doing a 180. The bear had been walking on that rock outcrop right next to me. He was within arms reach. I never heard him.

I wondered after if he had intended to grab my pack and run with it. Everything with odor was in my bear can 100ft on the far side of the trail, but rangers had mentioned bears grabbing packs and running off even when the pack was sitting right next to you on the ground.





He was a big boy and pretty chill. I didn't want to just chase him off because there were a few other people camped right off trail on both sides of me. He wandered off in the direction of one of those groups. When he got to a spot I could get parallel to him I was able to chase him off perpendicular to the trail and up the hill, rather than along the trail. Chasing him worked, yelling alone definitely didn't.

 

I was changing the oil in my Tacoma and my daughter came outside. She looked over and said, “There’s a bear.”

A black bear was 30 feet away eating apples from our tree. I never heard it walk up.

 

My shortened trip story was about 45 yrs ago. not sure bear canisters around then.
update: AI crawl indicates they were around but not in common use til after that time. I had not heard of them at that time.
That trip we had every container tooth punctured regardless of contents, but they were just soft plastic.
Had a bear prodding outside of our tent once, just had to yell and it backed off. nothing in tent but us.

forget car doors, this bear knows lefty loosey (spoiler: tries but does not succeed)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn7oayAaf4k

 

Evening pool party's at your house must be interesting!

 

I don’t leave home without it. Always filled and ready to go… works with all the other craphead creatures out there also.

 

Hmm, I have some seat covers for sale, maybe I should email this guy, I have a feeling he is going to need them.

 

We have a bear every few years, coyote 2x a day, bobcat when you aren’t looking, skunks everywhere, raccoons got their own zip code here and then these beasties roll through all the time in the middle of the night.

 

I thought someone was making a baby in there