Hard tops for truck bed camping?

Brings to mind that yahoo-nut who camped within yards of bears. Even talked his girlfriend into it. Both were mauled by their photographic subjects. The only saving grace is that they both said publicly "Eh ... if we die, then we die".

 

the best defense against bears is bringing your own bear to tell the other bears to stop.

 

This. Been doing this for years, don’t need no hard top.

 

I have the RLD, insane quality (before the bad run with their powder coat). Love the stainless steel vs aluminum just for the ability to use magnets for just about everything: paper towel holder, carabiners for gear, wires/lights, and…magnets instead of patches from my trips. Thinking of going the camper route so have my set up listed for sale, not sure if I’d part it out but happy to answer any questions. Have a buddy with the Smartcap and one with the new AluCab so have seen all of them up close

 

Had the RLD and loved it except the horrible condensation, fixed that, and what bothered me was I spent 1 1/2 years pushing hard to get new badges to fix the one on the canopy that was rusting. The guys in South America just kept telling me to contact the north American guys and they were no help at all. From the looks of it the South Africans stopped production during covid and haven't started back up yet

https://www.rlddesignusa.com/truck-caps-canopies/

 

I see you are in Tennessee. I am in East TN, and looking to get rid of my ARE Topper, if you are interested. Unfortunately it is MGM color so I'll make you a good deal if you are interested.

 

I always heard it was bringing someone along that was slower than you.

 

Not sure how recent your last correspondence was with them in SA, but I reached out for the rubber lock covers and they told me to let them know how many I needed and I could get them sent out. I think I reached out via Instagram

 

I can sorta vouch for that.
No Grizzly (Brown Bear) encounters, personally, but have encountered a Black Bear.
Note - "Black Bear" is a species, not a color. They are usually darker in color than a Grizzly but can vary from midnight black to all shades of brown. So just because you see a bear and that bear is indeed a brown bear in color, it does not mean that it is a Brown Bear in species, AKA a Grizzly Bear.

Your description of a Black Bear being a large raccoon is spot on. Timid but curious. The problem is that "a fed animal is a dead animal" and there are plenty of crystal worshiping, hairy armpit, patchouli oil wearing hippies up here that feel they must atone for "taking over the bears habitat." Somehow feeding a bear absolves them of the sins of having a carbon footprint. So they feed it offerings of food before they head out to the magic vortex and worship in the sweat lodge.

The foods we eat are far more nutrient dense than the foods a bear usually gets in the woods so they start to crave that. Also they start to associate the smell of humans (deposited on the food and from our diet of the same food we offer the bear sweating out through our pores) and thus a mental addiction, just like humans with crack cocaine, is formed in the bears mind - I smell the people. I get the food, happiness ensues.

Unfortunately, bears don't have the emotional intelligence to understand that eating people is wrong. So now by feeding them we have given them entrance into a world with morals and rules that they can not comprehend or abide by and it ends badly. Always ends badly for the bear because they are destroyed but also can end badly for people that are attacked because they smelled like a fine dining restaurant to the bear.

We ran into our black bear in Sedona Arizona - Fay Canyon. Juvenile, about 150lbs. Looked like Danny DeVito in a bear suit. We were up a box canyon and the bear followed us in cutting off escape. I kept seeing the bear and pointing it out to my wife but by the time she turned and looked the bear dropped into the thicket. She thought I was crazy but by the time she saw it we were 2.5 miles deep in a canyon with one way in and out. We began a hasty "speed walking" hike out of the canyon with a 357 out. We were on a trail that mostly paralleled a dry creek bed. The bear was in the creek bed. Occasionally the trail would drop into the creek and cross over. each time the bear was 20 to 30 yards back from us and loping along.

Black Bears run at about 30mph - that's a good 14 yards per second. If he was 30 yards back the bear was only 2 to 3 seconds away! We made it out of the canyon and called him into the ranger since he had tailed us in and then back out. Bear was probably behind us for a good 3 to 4 miles round trip.

I'm 75% sure the bear wasn't stalking us. Just curious. We had a dog with us so three humans and a dog worth of smells and we just had breakfast. Plenty of reasons we smelled different than everything else in the canyon (there were deer in there too). But that also means I was 25% on the other side hence the 357.

 

Just looked and it was late 2022. I just gave up with them as I sold the truck/canopy and it was a endless runaround for 2 metal badgeplates

 

I’m not so sure humans eat food that is higher in nutritional density than a wild animal forages on. Sugars, carbs, protein, fat dense more likely.
However. Some ranger I was speaking with this past summer compared black bear, in a campground setting, to a black lab. You just need to scare them.

Not trying to discredit you, I am sure your situation was intense.