From: Brad Cannon (p2texan@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2002 - 21:55:36 CST
I apologize right off the start for the length of the
message, but I should share the information that I
recall as being a Ranger last summer.
<I understand we have to hang that day’s clothes. OK,
what does "that day's clothes" include?>
“That day’s clothes” included any clothes which were
worn while hiking or while eating. The clothes which
were worn (I told my crews to exclude underwear and
socks. Since the health lodge tells the scouts to put
emergency medicine in their boot and cover it with
their sock, the “do I hang my sock?” issue was
solved). One important thing was that all clothes
falling into this category went up in the bear bag
until they were washed with campsuds. The fact that
they kept going up until washed was one of the harder
things for some crews to grasp. Since 1998 (when I
first went on a trek) it has always been requested to
have sleep clothes. Last year, your sleep clothes
were used only for sleeping and for nothing else. I
had many participants that used only shorts as sleep
clothes. Some of my crews did the nightly “thorns and
roses” prior to hanging the bear bags so they wouldn’t
be standing around or sitting on the ground in their
sleep clothes.
<changing clothes flew heavily into the face of Youth
Protection requirements>
I don’t ever recall the ranch ever bringing up
changing clothes as a YPT issue. We knew some crews
felt it was an issue, but it was something that I as
Ranger was never advised on how to deal with. But you
can always go to the latrine and change. Since this
does not violate YPT why would changing clothes there?
Therefore, each Ranger probably dealt with it
differently. If they did get hit with YPT concerns,
maybe there will be a clearer answer this summer.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
<OK, what about naps>
I wish I could answer your nap question directly but I
can’t. But when the afternoon rains came, the dining
fly became the gathering point instead of everyone
jumping into their tents. I personally liked this
outcome, because it allowed the crew to spend some
time together (I'm sure your thinking that I'm saying
the crew is never together, but during my time with a
crew, I enjoyed the everyone together time). Heck, if
it wasn’t for this I would have never learned how to
play Euchre. One thing to remember, you can always go
against advice of not going into tents with your
“smellable’s” on. Just remember what the bear roaming
around in the middle of the night is looking for. It
is looking for the food that it smells. So the
decision is up to you on where you want the bear to
focus its attention. It can either be your tent where
you are dreaming of your next day's climb up Phillip's
or Baldy, or the bear can be in the bearmuda triangle.
< my initial thoughts are we may now need to bring two
tarps--a lightweight screen and a rain tarp>
I don’t think that a second tarp is necessary. One of
my August crews were faced with the “screen” issue and
they decided to use their tent’s rain fly. I thought
this was a good idea and mentioned to my one other
crew that had a question on how to change. This falls
into a category of utilizing your resources
(especially those which you are already carrying).
I also feel I should mention that Rangers started
requiring crews to set their tents up approximately
100 feet away from any point on the Bearmuda Triangle.
Not all campsites are set up for this, but crews
learned to adjust.
One things that crews are told is that if you have any
doubt about whether it should go up on the bear cable
or not, then it goes up on the bear cable.
I can’t speak for what happened after the first two
days, but I’ll leave that up to the rest of the list.
Brad Cannon
Ranger ’01
Gig ‘Em Aggies
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