[Philmont] Bear Bags

 
If you head into the Valle Vidal, which is more Leave No Trace than the main
ranch, you will not have bear cables. You will need to put up your own
cable using Philropes. It can get to be quite challenging in some places. We
put a climbing carabiner in the center of the cable/rope and used it to raise
and lower the bear bags. Our ranger was training the crew and they didn't
show him how we had been doing it on shake downs. Without the carabiner they
cut through the main cable/rope when attempting to raise the bear bags. The
ranger really liked the carabiner idea after that.
 
The next morning there were fresh bear tracks all under the bags and along
the creek next to them. The prior afternoon soon after reaching the campsite
the ranger and I had to walk towards a bear to get him to leave the campsite
area. We had to do this twice, and a nearby crew had to do it once. This
was at Rich Cabins; trek 6-17-K3-2006. One of the boys also saw a mountain
lion while we were there. The lion spooked two young bucks that ran right
through the middle of our campsite. The animals were somewhat disturbed because
of a lot of smoke coming from a fire on Ted Turner's ranch. This was the
summer that there was "Fire Danger - EVERYWHERE!".
 
In a message dated 10/5/2007 2:27:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
mycales@tx.rr.com writes:

Dan,

With our bear bags, we could put a full 4 days of Philmont food for a crew
of 12 in one bag. We never put that much in because some meals were always
either eaten or put in the oops bag for easier access for dinner.

Bear bag lines and PCT method…

Philmont uses (and makes each crew use) a “bear cable” that is just a large
steel cable run between two trees about 20 feet off the ground. They won’t
let you run lines over limbs, etc. The bear cable is your limb.

Our para-cord line setup – each of our two para-cord bear lines is a 100’
length of 700 pound test para-cord. The length is “folded” in half with a
figure 8 loop in the center (carabineer loop). So, the two “ends” of our bear
ropes are 1) two loose ends of the para cable, and 2) the center loop. The
two loose ends are tied to different trees once the bag has been attached to
the center loop and has been raised

We run one bear cord over the bear cable – the center loop is run over the
cable leaving two loose ends on one side and the center loop on the other. We
attach our main bear bag to that center loop using a climbing rated
carabineer. We also run the oops bag bear line through this carabineer (the
carabineer is now the pulley for the oops bag). Once the main bear bag is attached
and the oops line is run through, we raise the main bag up to within about a
foot of the bear cable (with someone holding onto both “ends” of the oops
line to make sure it doesn’t get caught up or twisted. The main bag should
never have to be lowered until the next morning.

Once the main bag is secured to trees – a whole other process for us – we
attach the oops bag containing any meals to be eaten that day and our
smellables to the center loop of the oops line and raise the bag, tying off to the
same trees as the main bag. With our method, the oops bag can be lowered and
re-raised in about a minute when/if needed.

Are you confused yet? It’s a lot easier than it sounds, and I’m a terrible
writer.

We don’t tie our bear lines directly to trees either. We have a tree
harness we use that is a 1” nylon webbing (less tree damage). The harness has two
loops – one for the main bag line and one for the oops bag line. The lines
are attached to the harness using smaller carabineers – allows for much
easier/faster lowering of bags…

I’ll take some pictures of our stuff in use this month and post on the forum
photo gallery.

I know this all sounds confusing. Let me know what parts I need to explain
better…

What is your 2008 expedition number? We’ll be there from June 18 to June
30.

--
Shane (from work)
Advisor - Crew 445 - crew445.org
CM -  Troop 445 - troop445.org
WM - Philmont Forum - philmontforum.org
'81-9 |  '84-24 | '00-8 | '02-23FM | '05-26 |  '08-??
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