RANash
Member
The last time I went camping at Lake Tahoe (3 years ago, at Camp Richardson, a private commercial campground) the bears were everywhere every night. The reason was 1) the camp didn't empty the trash cans often enough, so there was garbage spilling out of the "bear proof" cans, 2) almost everyone kept food in their tents or outside their tents in ice chests sitting on the picnic table.
When the bears would tear the ice chests open, people would come out and yell and scream, and even throw stones at the bears. The bears were so used to people, they wouldn't even look at the humans! They would just calmly eat everything and amble away. The only time I saw anyone scare one away was when one guy started lighting up "cherry bomb"-type firecrackers and throwing them at the bears.
One big dumb guy (human, I think) threw a very large rock (about softball size) at one of the larger bears, and hit it smack in the right eye. The bear waved his paw at his head like he was waving off a pesky fly and never even stopped foraging through the food!
Needless to say, I'll never go there again. It was an urban nightmare among the pine trees. The bears were a pleasure compared to the people!
I didn't know that it was actually illegal to store food inside your tent, but it makes sense. Camp Richardson is not NFS land, so no rangers. Years ago, I used to backpack into wilderness areas, and we'd do the "hang the food from the tree limb" thing. It worked well. I hear that in Yosemite, the bears have gotten wise to it, and now know to gnaw the ropes in two and a tasty treat will drop from the sky!
As far as shooting bears, I was only passing on some info I had been told. Spray sounds like it might be effective.
Oh, yes, as many have said, California only has black bears, not brown. The only brown bears left in CA are on the flag!
