[philmont] Bear Ropes

Great story. Thanks for owing up to it.

Phil Brown

________________________________

From: philmont@troop47.com [mailto:philmont@troop47.com] On Behalf Of
Joseph Jansen
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 7:30 PM
To: philmont List Member
Subject: [philmont] Bear Ropes

They are there all right. If you haven't seen them, give yourself a pat
on the back, as your attention to miinimising smellables, more than any
other single factor, probably led the bears to conclude that you weren't
worth their time.

One bear story. In 1965 a bear raided our campsite, shared with several
sister crews. Bear found a way to shinny up a tree and outwit the bear
bag system of the day, eating most of a crews food. Our crew, too
exhausted to erect the bear bag system, put our stuff under a tarp and
set a jelly mixed with soap powder trap for the bear. (Warning: Do not
try this at home. Do not try this at Philmont. It can only be revealed
now because the statute of limitations for Philmont misdeeds has passed)
Great chaos that night, with bear noises and boys yelling. Next morning
the results were learned. Bear had eaten the other crews provisions,
even though it had to climb to get them and outwit the bear bag system.
The jelly/soap powder bait had been taken - and there were bear
droppings very near where the bait had been set - but our provisions
were untouched. We had a few jokes at the sister crew's expense over
the next few days until arriving at the next food pickup. And once
during this trek we saw bear claw markings on wooden "swap boxes".

Joe Jansen

JAJansenJr@gmail.com

Philmont 1965; 1978

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Received on Thu Jan 18 20:01:37 2007