“[A]ll food, garbage, and scented items such as toothpaste, deodorant, sunscreen, toiletries, and chapstick, must be stored in bear canisters, hung from park bear wires, or hung at least 12 feet high and 10 feet out from the nearest tree trunk.”
National Parks Traveler describing new restrictions at Olympic National Park.
Camping in some parks is like trying to get on an airplane. Damn bears. Damn terrorists.
Bearorists!
The wife and I were there two weeks ago and hanging food is out. It’s canisters only now.
NewMexiKen, do you remember the day you and I hiked along the High Divide Trail north of Mt. Olympus? I counted 6 bears that day.
Damn park visitors ; )
Bears didn’t like people.
People sure like bears. In their cars, with their kids, and their spouse.
I’d like to see a dual park system. One visitor never sets foot outdoors, goes to park, sits on monorail in glassed-in air-conditioned comfort, gets fed great meal. Gets great Disney type visit. Pays a lot. Goes home.
The other can pass written and performance test on standards for tread-lightly. First aid, basic land navigation, traveling near large carnivorous mammals. Open access, bring your camping gear.
Trails would be less traveled. Maintenance and rescue costs go way down. Bears would go back to eating berries rather than marshmallows. Rangers could go back to protecting park instead of bottom of gene-pool.
Continuing to try to treat these two fundamentally different types of visitors as equal is not only irrational, but expensive. Insulting to the experienced, and dangerous to the inexperienced. We need permission for the forest service to quit trying to split this hair.