High Sierra Topix

Coulter

Thanks for the clarification!

Mike

Thanks for the stats. I would have thought the bear spray/firearm would have been reversed. I guess you get nervous when a bear charges and miss....

I've never seen those stats so they could be iffy. But during the whole changing the weapon carrying laws in National Parks, I called a couple of rangers at Glacier. Both said you're much better off with bear spray than a gun. Years ago, one ranger said he'd never heard of a grizzly stopped by a pistol, though I think it has happened, just rare. When you look at how many times well-trained law enforcement officers miss shots in deadly force situations, it's not hard to imagine hitting a fairly small kill zone on a rapidly moving grizzly.

Another story boys and girls? Oh, OK. So a few summers back, we had a couple of really troublesome bears. They'd already broken into the ranger station. So I see one of them approaching from a distance. I grab a big can of bear spray (which I'd never used before...) and hid behind a tree. When the bear got within about 15 feet, I came out and sprayed at the bear.

Well, it was spray, not a straight stream as I expected. So there's this huge perfectly round globe of orange mist hanging between the bear and I, poised to drift one way or the other. We both looked up at it, looked at each other, and ran opposite directions.

Pretty effective stuff.

George

As was mentioned, if grizzlies were reintroduced into the Sierra, most would stay below usual summer backpacking elevations. So would likely impact lower elevation western slope areas at national forest boundaries where they would bother large numbers of private ranchettes and summerhomes built in the last few decades by urban refugees with money to spend as well as seasonal mountain meadow cattle grazing.

I have not been a fan of all the real estate dealings below national forest areas. Actually I dislike the way the whole state of California is endlessly being carved up by the short-sighted greedy land development industries. All along the those western fringe areas from above Bakersfield to above Redding are elaborate networks of new paved and dirt roads crawling with people selling land. A few grizzlies down there would do some good scaring people away from the developers.

I would second the home for the grizzly being the valley. From some historical ecology work I have read, in Contra Costa County there was a thick brush patch out near Oakley. Apparently this was known in the early days as a grizzly lair. Since the brush was pretty thick, the area wasn't converted to ag until mechanized equipment was available.

I remember backpacking during a summer in Montana back in 1980. I never encountered one but I did think about them. I was hiking solo all summer. I remember when I was the most jumpy--I was going off trail through this densely forested area with tons of bear scat. I was a bit on edge. This grouse flushed and I jumped high enough to dunk from the top of the key. I partly took care of my nervous anxiety by eating an amazing amount of the numerous different berries growing in the area (huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries, thimbleberries). This led to severe GI tract issues when I reached my destination.