High Sierra Topix

I visited this area in 2009, from Pear Lake over Tablelands down to Big Bird. From there, as I recall, it was a fairly simple descent to Deadman Canyon. Here is a shot from later in the trip, in the upper reaches of Cloud Canyon looking north toward Whaleback, near Lion Lake Pass - may help with your question about getting to Colby. We were ascending Cloud Canyon and there was a lot of snow (June) but it was not difficult.

Gracias, Zoltan.

What are the rules regarding use of bear boxes? Specifically, I would like to leave 3 days' supply of food for 2 (~12 lbs), for our exit over Shepherd Pass, in the bear boxes at Junction Meadow, while doing what I'm calling "the Kaweah loop," i.e., High Sierra Trail from Junction Meadow to Lone Pine Creek, Elizabeth Pass, Deadman Canyon, Roaring River, Cloud Canyon, Colby Pass, Junction Meadow. I would mark the pkg with our names, and date of expected pickup.

Will the Tyndall Creek ranger leave our food alone, or confiscate it?

Should I be concerned about someone taking our food?

Slade wrote:

Will the Tyndall Creek ranger leave our food alone, or confiscate it?

Ranger Durkee from an older post on this subject:

"More importantly, it is absolutely illegal (and bad karma) to leave anything in a bear
box whether "free" to the next hiker or as a cache to be picked up. No matter how
well intentioned everyone is, over 60% of caches are never (!) picked up. Guess who
hauls them out or back to the ranger station? Your kindly backcountry ranger. Every
year, I probably haul over 300 lbs. of abandoned caches and junk food back to the
station to be packed out. Many times I have no packers coming by and it accumulates
taking up my really limited storage space.

So all the rangers in Sequoia Kings confiscate any food caches found in bear boxes
and take it back to the ranger station. The same is true of bear canisters stashed
off trail and meant as a cache -- I find and confiscate about half a dozen of those
per season. You can pick up your cache (if the ranger's there) along with a citation.
Don't want to be snarly about this, but it's a huge problem. Onion Valley allows
long-term storage of food in the boxes there (the intent is also to have boxes available for campers to leave their extra food from their vehicles while hiking)".

George

Should I be concerned about someone taking our food?

Never had an issue with food being stolen, though haven't used one in many years, and
have heard of people who have had food stolen.

That's bad news, maverick, but thank you for it. I guess here, as in other worlds, the majority suffers for the sins of the few. May as well cowboy up to 6 more pounds apiece. @#&?!*