![]() ![]() I’ve seen travelers pile up bags of trash outside their trailers or vans for days on end in the desert before taking it into town, but in bear country, it is a huge no no. Even stepping away for 10-minutes to visit a neighbor can be enough to invite a bear into your camp. With this in mind, the number one rule is to never leave food or trash outside your vehicle unless you are with it, including dog food and dog food bowls, even empty ones, and of course things like grills that food has been cooked on and items such as plates, even clean ones. They can even smell carcasses under water. A BARE campsite is the rule when camping in bear country – In other words, keep a clean camp ~ Bears have an incredible sense of smell, as much as seven times more sensitive than a blood hound and 300 times more sensitive than a human and grizzlies can smell a rotting carcass from 20-miles given the right conditions. If you have a soft sided camper or tent, then the rules are totally different and you can learn about them by going here: “ Stop There – Be Bear Aware” from the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center.ġ. (Please understand that in this article I’m talking about camping in a hard sided vehicle. Here are some things I do to help prevent an unwanted incident with a bear. They are free to roam where they please, and if you’re heating up a can of tuna in mushroom soup with a can of green beans added for good measure (one of my favorite camp dishes), it’s entirely possible you’ll be banging pots together or clapping hands and yelling at a bear to scare it away. ![]() Obviously, it’s impossible to avoid bears in bear country. This is in the exact location that I’m camping almost every night this summer (2017), and I’ve been visited by many bears in this location over the years. Here’s the cinnamon black bear ambling away. But bears don’t only appear at trailheads, they can appear anywhere. (I don’t worry so much at busy trail heads, just remote locations with few people). I admit it…when I return from a hike in bear country I always hold my breath as I approach my vehicle, hoping that it has been left untouched. You may have an ice chest full of groceries, and all kinds of packaged and canned foods in your van, along with shampoo and toothpaste to name a few of the many scented items bears love, and of course Bounty dryer sheets to keep away the mice. ![]() When your vehicle is your home, that simply isn’t possible. This young bear was trespassing close to where I was working one summer, where I was selling chainsaw carved wooden bears and was known as The Bear Lady.Ī lot of hiking trail heads suggest that you don’t leave any food or anything scented in your vehicle while you hike. They had left trash inside and the vehicle unlocked, and the bear had just opened the door and had a field day with the trash bags, and expressed its gratitude by leaving them a little present on the car seat. Just the other day a co-worker of mine had a bear inside their car. I’ve seen pictures of vehicles with holes in the side where a bear has just torn in through the metal panel. Bears can tear into a home, into sheds, garages, and tip over dumpsters as though they are tin cans. In Estes Park, a bear was caught on camera helping itself to chocolate in the Chocolate Factory Store one night. ![]() When you live in the mountains you hear many stories from your neighbors about bears breaking into kitchens by smashing windows, or just walking into homes and helping themselves to the food in the fridge. I had my window all the way down and was eating salt and vinegar potato chips, and suddenly it was right there. I was watching a movie and didn’t realize it was there until it bumped the side of my Mitsubishi. This cinnamon black bear came right up to my vehicle one evening. I don’t profess to be an expert on bears, but I thought I’d share some of the general rules along with a few of my own experiences with bears, and a couple of experiments I’m trying for those unwanted midnight visits from these big Bruins. Camping in bear country is not to be taken lightly, all bears can do a huge amount of damage in a very short time, yes, even black bears. I’ve also boondocked alone in Grizzly bear country in Wyoming and Montana and camped in the mountains of Oregon and Washington State. I spent one of those summers in a tent and twelve or so of them in a vehicle. I’ve spent eighteen of the last twenty summers in the mountains of Colorado. Those of us that live in or take vacations in hard sided vehicles in bear country have a unique situation to deal with. whether it’s a car, a van, a travel trailer, or a huge motor home. Elusive, powerful, beautiful, intelligent, and at times dangerous, especially when you live in an R.V. ![]()
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