[at-l] Another Ursack failure!!!

[dfaddleton@mindspring.com (David)]

I've never used an ursack or any other hard container to keep bears and
other critters away from my food. Thankfully, I've never had any food stolen
by critters since, well, since childhood, when a pack of dogs or jakals
devoured some two dozen steaks we'd brought along to feed as many little
guys . . . In that case it was my fault for leaving our packs unattended for
too long . . . boys being boys, we retaliated, using the sole remaining
steak and a box of pepper . . . what a racket when those critters came back
for seconds . . .

Please someone correct me here if I'm wrong about this, or maybe it's just
that I hike in the southeast, but I thought the idea was to hang a bear bag
OUT OF REACH of a bear . . . I use this tiny, net hammock that came free
with a cheap coleman tent I used for car camping to stow my food and mess
kit. It wouldn't take but one swipe from a bear to empty its contents on the
ground.

I throw a 50-60 foot cord up over a branch some 15 to 20 feet off the ground
and substantially away from the tree trunk. At one end I've tied a cheap,
Home Depot pulley. I  put the other end of the cord through the pulley and
then pull the pulley back to the branch, and tie off the pulley in that
position. I tie my free coleman gear hammock to the other end of the cord.
Then, I pull the gear up to the pulley and tie it off, usually at another
tree, leaving some of the slack cord on the ground between the two ties.

I know some creatures have tried to reach my bag.  I assume in one instance
a black bear in the Shenandoah made this effort. The foliage beneath it was
massacred the next morning in the vain attempt.

I'm inclined to think it's the people who hung these ursacks which caused
the failure, not the ursack itself.





----- Original Message -----
From: "kahley" <kahley7@ptd.net>
To: <at-l@backcountry.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 7:34 PM
Subject: [at-l] Another Ursack failure!!!


> Henry Shires reported this to the BPL......
>
> "Just got off the phone with my wife who called me from Red's Meadow
> (Devil's Postpile) on the JMT. She reported that our new Ursack Ultra
> did not survive a bear attack at Garnet Lake. She left home before either
> of us knew that SEKI had pulled approval based on the Vidette Meadows
> failure. She said that the bear worked on the Ursack Ultra for 45
> minutes, ripped a hole in the body, and extracted 5 days of food. Unilke
> the other failure at Vidette Meadow, there were no hard materials (pots
> etc.) in the bag, only food stuffs. Needless to say, the Ursack DOES NOT
> work against High Sierra garbage bears and the Park Service is right to
> have pulled the conditional approval. FYI- she was told apon arrival at
> Tuolumne Meadows that the Ursack was banned above 9,600, not because of
> it wouldn't stop a bear but because the straps would/did do damage to
> fragile trees."
>
> Why don't they rename this lemon the Crittersack......it's seems
> the Urses have it's number....
>
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