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JesseM
Social climber
Yosemite
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 30, 2009 - 03:33pm PT
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Rapid fire threads from the Yosemite Climbing Rangers today as we wait for our Epi-training to begin in 45 minutes...I'm waiting for Max the Rookie to jump in...
Well people, it's that time of year again. The bears are patrolling the base of El Cap on a regular basis. It looks like the clan of Bear #46 has returned with a vengeance. There is at least one other bear regularly looking for calories at the base. We have had several bear sightings and at least two haul bag ripped into. I've also had a report of a bear bluff charging a climber 4 times until finally giving up the game. I have to hand it to the girl who held her ground in that situation! I imagine there have been many more incidents that haven't been reported.
Last year I carried loads of water to the base for our Mescalito trip, and foolishly left them inside a haul bag. They were all brand new store bought gallons. The point is: these bears are so conditioned to climbers leaving food around that they will systematically check out any closed container to look for calories.
Yesterday Max and I were cruising the base, and saw several questionable hangs that could easily be "beared." Let me explain what works:
-Food can be stored at the base as you prepare for a wall in a Yosemite Wilderness approved Bear Cannister.
-Food can be hung from an anchor on the wall as long as it is at least 25' off the ground, without ropes that directly attach to the food bags/haulbag hanging to the ground.
-It also can't be stored on the wall if the climbing to the bags is 5.9 or easier....Seriously.
Yesterday we observed a bear begin to down climb the slab below Mescalito's first pitch. There was a bag of food hung on the slab that he clearly wanted to get into, but decided he couldn't pull the 5.11 upside down slab moves that it took to get the last 6 feet. If he tried and fell that would be sad.
So lets all work harder on our food storage at El Cap and everywhere else. If you bring food to the base of a climb, you need to bring it all with you once you leave the ground. We don't want to be the responsible group for another bear casualty!!
Thanks for the help and support,
Jesse McGahey
Yosemite Climbing Ranger
(209) 372-0360
jesse_mcgahey@nps.gov
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
dangling off a wind turbine in a town near you
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May 30, 2009 - 03:36pm PT
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Do the bears not just play golf (or hockey, or kickball or whatever) with bear cannisters?
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JesseM
Social climber
Yosemite
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2009 - 03:56pm PT
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They bat the cannisters around a bit, but they can't get inside them. Of course, no one should leave them close to a drop off, slab, or steep slope.
This is a really good method that is worry free, does not require you to fix any pitches, and doesn't attract the scrutiny of other hazardous mammals such as Climbing Rangers.
We rent them out from the Wilderness Center for $5 a trip. Pretty cheap if you ask me.
Word,
Jesse
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
dangling off a wind turbine in a town near you
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May 30, 2009 - 03:58pm PT
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"...doesn't attract the scrutiny of other hazardous mammals such as Climbing Rangers."
hehe
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J. Werlin
climber
Cedaredge
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May 30, 2009 - 04:02pm PT
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Epi-Training?
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Holdplease2
Big Wall climber
Yosemite area
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May 30, 2009 - 04:12pm PT
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While trying to fix recently bears dug through the gear repeatedly, bit into water bottles, and sat within 25 feet of us for the larger part of the day waiting for us to make the mistake of moving too far from our small supply of food for fixing.
The bear canister may be necessary for even small portions of food that you plan on having with you to eat during the day if you are going to take a couple of days to fix.
At one point, while my partner was sitting on a rock sorting gear, the bear came up behind her without her noticing, with his head less than 3 feet from her head. She had no food. I hate to imagine if she had moved suddenly and startled him into swatting at her.
We have seen three separate bears and had extensive interaction with all of them. They have not managed to get any food, as we hung it high from cams in a crack and kept daily food close at hand.
One did grab my blackberry and tear off the silicon case and eat half of that. Perhaps because it had some sort of food residue on it? I don't know.
I don't like hearing about bears charging people. This worse that I've seen it in five years of spending extensive time at the base. The woods between AO wall and T.Trip are littered with shredded food waste.
Its important to note that hanging from trees does NOT work. Bears climb trees very well.
-Kate.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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May 30, 2009 - 04:23pm PT
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no joke...
they're here
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WBraun
climber
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May 30, 2009 - 04:46pm PT
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I talked to all the bears and they told me they're old Indians from the past and have come back in this life as bears to harass the white mans ass for their past crimes against humanity.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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May 30, 2009 - 04:53pm PT
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Hmmmm, seems like there'd be a better way.
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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May 30, 2009 - 04:57pm PT
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Right on Werner, I can believe this. Also gotta believe some of those reincarnated bears climbed 5.9 or better BITD they were Ahwahneechees!
Peace
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quietpartner
Trad climber
Moantannah
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May 30, 2009 - 05:12pm PT
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Doesn't anyone use bearspray?
It works (usually) on the grizzlies up here.
Except when the wind's blowing in your face.
Except when it's past the due date. A couple of mountain bikers emptied two cans on a grizzly that finally ran off when a third biker hove into view.
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
dangling off a wind turbine in a town near you
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May 30, 2009 - 05:19pm PT
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reprint of an old post, but kinda funny, in a horrible way:
---------------------------------------------------------
So I was staying in C4 a few years ago with my buddy "Jimmy". We had a break-in in the beater Subaru wagon we drove out in, even though we had no food in the car. some bear was appearently tearing things up that fall.
A couple of days later we were hanging around a mostly deserted C4 about 11:00 AM with some Canadian hitchhiker dude from the next campsite while a bunch of Spaniards made pancakes at another site across the way. The Spaniards were distracted by something and moved away from the picnic table, and we watched as some bear ambled over and began eating the pancake fixins. The Spaniards hollered and waved and the bear kept on eating. The Spaniards eventually disappeared in the direction of the kiosk.
About 15 minutes later an official pick-up parked in front of our site and a uniformed dude and two uniformed chicks got out. The dude let a black lab out of the back of the truck. The dog promptly treed a squirrel and the dude went chasing after it. The dog started running circles around the tree with the dude following. The dude chased the dog around the tree, occasionally reversing direction, for a couple of minutes. When the dude finally caught the dog, he dragged him back to the truck, chucked him in a cage, and left the two chicks with a dart gun and various sundry gear. One of the chicks put the rifle to her shoulder and fired, scoring a hit squarely on the offending bruin. Said bruin hightailed it off into the pines past the YOSAR site. The YOSAR dudes, who had been watching the scenario, jumped on their fleet of beater bikes and got outta C4. The two chicks walked into the pines following the bear.
After about 15 minutes, one of the chicks came towards our camp. She walked up and asked us if we would like to help them carry abear out of the woods. Jimmy said hell no, y'all need to leave those bears alone. The Canadian dude said sure. I said OK (the chick was kinda hot). We followed the chick into the pines and came upon a weird scene.
The other chick was standing over a quivering bear holding a pole with a syringe affixed to one end. She was jabbing (not poking man, she was exerting some force) the bear with the non-syringe end of the stick, and if it so much as twitched a lip, she would turn the stick around and dose the bear with some sort of giant-killer sedative. After a number of pokes the bear was motionless, you could hardly see it breathing. Meanwhile I was chatting up the other rangerette. I told her about our car getting broken into (we had no food whatsoever in it), and she seemed to sympathise. She asked me if I thought this was the bear that did it. I said I didn't know (hell, they all look alike to me). She then asked me a question that still slays me.
"Well, this one's not going to do anything. Do you want to kick it?"
I politely declined and helped the chicks and the Canadian dude heave the fallen bruin onto a stretcher and back to the (recently re-arrived) truck.
So that's my story.
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kent
Trad climber
SLC, Ut
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May 30, 2009 - 06:22pm PT
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10 days ago my buddy and I were chased/stalked from the base of i guess the aquarian wall area to about the nose. We had come around a corner on our approach to lurking fear and a large bear was going through some climbers backpack about 30 ft away. It immediately started walking towards us. We had a haulbag filled with water bottles that it must have wanted to check out. We started yelling and throwing rocks at the ground to scare it away. We moved away slowly while yelling and rock throwing. It just kept coming at us at the same speed until eventually we are around the nose area. Other climbers on el cap must have enjoyed watching and listening to us scream like pubescent teenagers...
What would you guys suggest to do in this situation?
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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May 30, 2009 - 06:24pm PT
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Well, don't throw your rocks at the ground.......You have a target, let 'er rip.
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kent
Trad climber
SLC, Ut
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May 30, 2009 - 06:35pm PT
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well the rocks were also thrown in the bears direction. I didn't want to actually hit the bear and then get mauled by it in retaliation.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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May 30, 2009 - 06:41pm PT
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Thanks for the word, Jesse!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 30, 2009 - 07:10pm PT
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Long time ago they used to dump the garbage in a special area up at Merced Lake HSC. Everytime the garbage went out it was two or three guys taking it because a pack of really big bears was just waiting to go through it. The bears in the park are so much smaller now because they don't have the access to goodies their predecessors had. Anyway someone always carried a slingshot out to the dump. You had to shoot at the bears to shoo them away from the dump. I remember shooting one particular bear, had to have been 300lbs plus, really hard with a rock, using a Wham-o sling shot. The thing didn't even flinch but just looked at me with the most penetrating stare like he was taking my name and number for a later encounter. I felt a combination of terrible and scared shi*less. Hiking around there after that I always thought that thing was just waiting behind a tree somewhere! I'm not sure rocks are such a good idea.
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msiddens
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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May 30, 2009 - 09:45pm PT
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Good lord, I hope bears don't start chipping the approach pitches. Just think of all the damage they'll do with the chisel! OH, if ONLY they had opposable thumbs!
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hoipolloi
climber
A friends backyard with the neighbors wifi
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May 31, 2009 - 02:18am PT
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As of last June there was a little cub, cute little guy, patrolling Half Dome really hard. That little guy climbed some fixed lines on the 1st pitch of the regular route that were hanging on blank slab (just right of the 10c first pitch). He scaled 20' up with no problem and was latched to my food bag. It took a lot of effort to chase him away. I won't underestimate them again.
This guy was incredible, he came back later to display his climbing skills by going to the top of a small pine and frollicking around. He would hang by one front paw from the top branches, then let go, falling through the branches, catching himself in the middle of the tree only to repeat the process. It was an amazing acrobatic sight. Poor guy will probably get shot soon if we don't do our part and store our food properly...
Thanks for the reminder Jesse.
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