Locked Bear Boxes at Kearsarge Lakes

[BrianF]

Does anyone know why the park service has locked all the bear boxes at the Kearsarge Lakes? I dayhiked over there on Saturday and saw signs heading in that the bear boxes were "unavailable". As I hiked around the Lakes and on down to Bullfrog, I saw 3-4 boxes there with padlocks on them. When I got home I looked on the Seki website and saw notices going back couple of years that the boxes were unavailable but no explanation. Seems odd to just lock them up. There were no signs of crews there working or anything like that

[AlmostThere]

Perhaps the rangers are totally sick of hauling out all the trash lazy people will leave in them. Or people were caching things for JMT thru friends. Both illegal.

Sucky people are why we can't have nice things...

[davepctjmt]

I understand that historically they'd been used for food caching for/by JMT hikers hence the closure.

The seki wilderness planner https://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/ ... -Final.pdf now says that one box is now supposed to be available - were they all locked?

A particular bugbear of mine is the "reserved for JMT/PCT hikers" status of some of the boxes, even those that aren't on the JMT or PCT! If the park service are going to the trouble of installing and maintaining a resource, why restrict it to a tiny subset of users?

[maverick]

If the park service are going to the trouble of installing and maintaining a resource, why restrict it to a tiny subset of users?

So everyone else needs to use bear canisters. :retard:

[franklin411]

Found this on the web:

Directions from Alison Steiner, NPS Wilderness Coordinator, June 2012:
The park is closing the Kearsarge Lakes food-storage lockers for the 2012 season in response to a noted increase in food caching at Kearsarge Lakes. Caching of materials in wilderness is problematic to park management and disruptive to park visitors and, as such, is prohibited.

http://www.climber.org/data/BearBoxes/KA04ZZ.html

[BrianF]

I wondered if it was overuse and leaving some people counting on them, then not having space. Even so, it seems like they should just require canisters for all and also leave the boxes. Why have the boxes there but unavailable? If they are not to be used, remove them.
I was just dayhiking and always carry a canister on backpacking trips so it was not a problem for me, but I was just curious what the reason was. I wasn't going out of my way to find the boxes, but all I saw were locked.

[Cross Country]

People leaving garbage.
Thoughts that everyone should use canisters.
Tired of taking out trash.
Bear boxes full of trash.
Regulations.
People here insisting that everyone follow rules strictly.
Wow!
Ahh for the 70's and 80's and how great was that time period and HOW I KNOW IT and loved it.

[AlmostThere]

If only bears didn't get food, become habituated, and continue to find lazy people who contributed to habituated bears despite requests to store food properly....

If only....

Irresponsible, lazy, sucky people are why we can't have nice bears...

[Langostino]

I can understand why they were locked - I saw garbage in every bear locker I passed on the JMT. Kearsarge is such a busy trailhead/pass I'm sure those bear lockers were filling up fast. The rationale of PCT/JMT hiker use only is silly, as they are required to carry canisters just like everyone else. It's not like they are allowed to hop from locker to locker and not have their food in a canister in between.

It takes the tiniest crumb of self-discipline to do the right thing, but some (apparently many) people don't even possess that crumb.

[Silky Smooth]

In the last 7 years I have not found one clean empty bear locker in the sierra. People are bad and its extremely frustrating for the wilderness rangers and good users. You are right about self discipline, a very small amount of outdoor rec people have it nowadays. People want to use and abuse and care very little about following basic LNT. This season was really awful but its been building for last 5 years or so.