Bill and I spent the whole day yesterday hiking with packs loaded as if for a “4 day run” on the PCT–we were out at Point Reyes National Seashore–and it was a great day for training!   During just the 9 hours we were out on the trail, we got rained on, hailed on, sunshined on, and “winded” on.  The wildflowers are really geared up–there were whole hillsides of Douglas Iris in every color that iris come in, the ceanothus (wild lilac) was in full bloom so that every time the wind blew (and it did blow!) we could smell the sweet scent.  In places the trail looked like there’d been a BLUE snowfall from the ceanothus petals.  The ocean obliged as well, by turning a deep blue color (though Bill says it “ain’t nuthin like” the blue of the ocean when you are way out of sight of land! And he should know, after being a graduate of the California Maritime Academy and spending several years going to sea as a ship engineer) . 

Point Reyes has such a wide variety of plants, terrain and scenery–it is glorious!  And the ocean is an ever-present, ever-changing factor.  Depending on where you are, you can hear the roar of the surf, or else just get incredible views of the rocks, beaches and foaming white waves as they sweep in.

In spite of the crazy weather (we had to duck under a tree when the hail came by!), the animals were out.  We saw a pretty good sampling of all the Point Reyes “critters”, from quail and bunny rabbits to deer and hawks and lots of other birds.  It reminded me of when we were on the PCT up in northern California in 2005,  and came across a freshly-logged area where a guy was clearing out all the “logging mess”.  When he saw us, he stopped work for a minute to talk, and one of his questions about our Mexico to Canada hike was, “Y’seen any critters?”   We assured him that yes, we had–bears, elk, marmots, badgers, deer, even a kangaroo rat, and of course, plenty of rattlesnakes.

And we’ve found that when we mention to people that we are going to do the PCT, one of the common questions is, “But aren’t you scared of the___(bears/rattlesnakes…)____?”

The answer is “Nope.  We RESPECT them but we don’t fear them.”  So let me comment on one of the “critters” of the PCT….BEARS!!

Remember, the only bears you meet on the PCT are black bears, not grizzlies.  And the key to dealing with black bears (which I learned from a camp host at Lake Tahoe years ago, and also from other “mountain men” I’ve met since then),  is that you need to immediately establish yourself as the “ALPHA” bear and let them know on no uncertain terms that YOU are the BOSS.   This means to use your whole body and your voice to say, “Hey! Yousa!  Get outta MY space!”   This means YOU “charge” the bear and stamp and yell and act aggressive.  Above all else, NEVER take a picture of the bear when the bear knows you are there.   This makes you look cowardly and submissive.    So many hikers act so submissive and cowardly that the bears lose their fear and respect for people.  Don’t stand there banging things and looking scared.  Charge that bear!  

We were camped at Lake Tahoe many years ago;  Bill and our daughter went for a hike, while I decided to take a nap–I was totally wiped out from having stayed up way late the night before, packing everything for the trip.  After awhile I heard a strange noise, and looked to see what it was.  Even though it was 2:00 in the afternoon, there was a large bear at our campsite, about 15 feet from me.  It had opened a small cooler we had brought along, and was happily eating the cheese and salami (package and all!).  I had always been told “Once the bear has your food, there is nothing you can do.”  So I stupidly stood there helplessly.   Just then, along came the camp host.   He took one look at what was happening, jumped out of his little “golf cart” and CHARGED the bear, yelling and stamping.   The bear immediately scooted off.    Then he sat me down and said I needed some “How to deal with a bear” lessons.   He  told me that bears have a very strict “pecking order” among themselves, and the “Alpha” bears are totally respected by all other bears.   He told me I needed to act like an indignant Alpha bear anytime I met another bear.   And he was right.   The very next day, I was out hiking with our daughter (just the two of us; Bill had gone off to hike in the Desolation Wilderness) and on the trail we met a bear, right in the middle of the path.  He glowered at us like he owned the trail.   But remembering what the camp host said, I “charged him”, stamping and yelling and acting indignant,  “Get offa MY trail!   This is MY trail, and I am the boss!””   And it worked.  Grumping and huffing, the bear got off the trail and moved into the woods, while we sailed on by.

On the PCT, most bears do fear people, and run for it when they see you.  The only place we SAW any bears was in Southern California, near Mt. Baden-Powell.  

And we never, ever had a bear visit our camp during the night, because we were careful never to camp near water, or near where anyone else had camped.   And we NEVER, ever cooked where we camped.  We cooked at noon,  or occasionally at 5:30 pm, then hiked on for many, many more miles before making camp.   Bears are not stupid.  They don’t waste their time wandering all over the mountains at night hoping they might find some backpacker’s food.   They know where people like to camp–by lakes, by rivers, where it’s pretty, etc.  So the back country bears are sure to visit THOSE places.  Also, they can smell your dinner cooking from MILES away.  You have to be smarter than a bear, and that means you DON’T camp where backpackers would normally camp, and  with the “NO cooking at the camp” rule, they will never find you.We carried the obligatory bear cans in Yosemite/Kings Canyon, but the cans could only hold a fraction of the amount of food we needed.  The rest was in our ordinary food bags, which we kept right next to us.  We had our trek poles handy just in case, “for whomping bears”, but never needed to do that.

In places where the bears were less of a problem, we did hang our food, IF we could find a proper branch to hang it from (not always easy to do!).  And a few times in the High Sierra, we put our food in a backcountry bear BOX.   I will never forget the day we went over Forester Pass and came down, down, down into Vidette Meadows, where to our horror, we found a bunch of other campers all cooking dinner.  The sun was going down, and we had to stop, but grrrrr!   We managed to locate a bear BOX, but when we opened it, we found it almost full of bear CANS!   How dumb can you get?   The whole point of a bear CAN is then you don’t need a bear BOX!   I managed to squeeze our food bags into the box,  while our cans we kept with us at camp.   That’s another dumb thing a lot of hikers do.  They put their bear cans way far from their camp.  If a bear finds the cans and messes with them,  it might be hard to find the can in the morning. 

So here are our “bear basics”:  1) If you meet a bear, don’t be a wuss!   ACT LIKE AN ALPHA BEAR!     2) Never, ever cook where you camp, and never camp near water or where other people have camped.     3)  Keep your food WITH you (yes, that means right next to you where you are sleeping!),  or IF you can find a good “hanging branch”, hang it.  (Note: this does not work in Yosemite–the bears there are too smart)

I have read other PCT hiker journals where they did have bear problems, and the bear/s got their food, but in every case,  they had not followed the above guidelines.