Scary things encountered

Caveman Charlie wrote:

Rmack1 wrote:
I once went tent-camping at Yosemite. I specifically asked, and was told that there were bear boxes at the campground. If you don't know, these are strong metal boxes with latches that bears can't defeat to keep your food and other odoriferous items that might attract them.

When we got there, the promised bear boxes were stacked in a big pile near the campground, enclosed by crime scene tape. I asked a ranger if we could just carry one over to our site. This would have worked, as no bear could carry one, and would give up anyway when he couldn't get in. No, for some obscure reason they couldn't let us do that. The ranger said to just keep our food in the trunk of our car.

The next morning, both windows in the back seat of my Honda Civic were folded down flat against the outside of the back doors with glass shards everywhere. The back rest was ripped to shreds. There were bear prints on the car (which I later showed to the insurance adjuster) and a smelly, dirty mess all over the back seat.

The bear never got the food, as the metal bulkhead between the back seat rest and the trunk defeated him.

I have never been back. I was appalled at the arrogance and condescension that I encountered from the rangers. I've met lots of other national forest and state rangers and never ran into anything like these kid's attitude.

Not the Rangers fault. If there was crime scene tape around them it's means the police have put up that tape. For the Ranger to remove one of the boxes would have been a felony for him to do so. You don't mess with a crime scene.

Yeah, I know. I have friends that used to be in law enforcement. I didn't violate the yellow tape, I just hated the miss-use of it. No crime had been committed there, unless you counted bad admin policy.