High Sierra Topix

Just returned from Yosemite last night...BTW, skies were clear/ no smoke and conditions perfect.

Anyway, I discovered that someone higher up YNP decided to arbitrarily close the entire Snow Creek ledge area, as there is that pesky bear up there who has the habit of rolling bear cans off the ledge and then heading down the trail to collect broken bearcan spoils.I do not understand how they can decide to close off any area if no actual danger exists. I could understand if there was a fire, or active landslide, or even Peregrine falcon nesting but to close off an entire wilderness camping area just because a bear might take a bearcan.

Too compound matters, the next day, 3 volunteer TM camp stewards (unpaid and clueless) decided they were going to go down there, just to camp over and see. When I told them I had just returned, they threatened me with a ticket. "Nobody is allowed there, except us!
WTF

They're not trying to save your life or keep you safe by closing that area. They are trying to save the life of that bear. Once the bear gets accustomed to taking food from hikers in that area, it will continue to do so and become less wild, and present a danger to humans. And then, sadly, it will have to be euthanized.

I have too many years' experience of the ineptitude and corruption of the NPS in Yosemite to expect anything but arrogance and mismanagement. BITD a bear like that would have been relocated to the back of beyond. (The Iron Creek drainage near the North Fork San Joaquin gaging station in the then-Minarets Wilderness was one popular resettlement area.)

And I wonder how many bears have lost their lives over the years due to conflagrations caused by decades of the NPS's ruinous fire suppression policies...

They stopped relocating bears because they just came back. and back again, and again... over and over. They sent them as far away as Sonora Pass. No problem for the bear to just come home again.

People are the cause of the problem. They'll keep causing the problem, because they don't understand that it isn't just them being careless with their food, ignoring the rules, forgetting the power bar in their backpack.... Just like all the problems with plague and hanta virus are directly related to careless people who don't stop feeding "friendly" small animals already. You'd never have an issue with those diseases if not for the proliferation of habituated critters thronging into small areas to collect leftovers we provide for them.

(The Iron Creek drainage near the North Fork San Joaquin gaging station in the then-Minarets Wilderness was one popular resettlement area.)

Was up there 8 years ago, saw no bears evidence of bear that time, guess I should consider myself fortunate.

Anyway, I discovered that someone higher up YNP decided to arbitrarily close the entire Snow Creek ledge area, as there is that pesky bear up there who has the habit of rolling bear cans off the ledge and then heading down the trail to collect broken bearcan spoils.I do not understand how they can decide to close off any area if no actual danger exists. I could understand if there was a fire, or active landslide, or even Peregrine falcon nesting but to close off an entire wilderness camping area just because a bear might take a bearcan.

Just to clarify, only camping at the top of the switchback is closed, but hiking thru the area is allowed according to my Yosemite source.