Bear Can Recommendations? Adirondack High Peaks

A number of years ago (>10) there was one bear with two yellow ear tags (nicknamed yellow-yellow). A small (like 150 lbs) female bear who figured out how to unscrew the Bear Vault canisters by using her teeth to push in the tabs as she turned the top. Her territory encompassed most of the popular high peaks area. I believe she would literally run down the trails from the Marcy Dam area down to the Lake Colden and then Flowed Lands. I camped at the designated site just north of the Lake Colden dam/bridge on the east side of Colden one night and I literally heard her jogging down the main trail, up the hill to my campsite, around my tent to where I had stashed the bear canister, and back down the hill to the main trail, and on to her next stop. It was rumored she taught her cubs to also open the Bear Vault canisters. She was in the area for years before a hunter finally took her – maybe 5 years ago? Anyway, who knows how many generations of cubs she taught to open the Bear Vaults. Another issue with the Bear Vaults that has occurred in the Adirondack High Peaks region is bears literally chewing threw the lid (they have photographs at the High Peaks Information Center). The only lighter options I know of (vs the Garcia) is the similarly designed, but much smaller Bear Boxer, or the much more expensive Bearikade. I eventually purchased a Bearikade, but I so rarely go into the Eastern High Peaks area I have thought about selling it actually.

Good luck with your scouts. One of the first backpacking trips I ever did was a week long “Trek” out of camp Massawepie when my son was 17 and had mined the camp for all the merit badges he could get, so he and a few other scouts from his troop signed up for the Trek instead. I went along with the camp’s guide as an adult leader. We used Garcia canisters on that trip.

I fell in love with backpacking and I have been taking solo trips, and trips with my brother, ever since. My son – not so much – I took two more trips with him as an adult but it wasn’t his thing. I have not been back to the eastern high peaks in more than 10 years (it is too crowded).

“I have not been back to the eastern high peaks in more than 10 years (it is too crowded).”

Many decades ago, our explorer scout leaders (Dads) balked at  continuing trips up the NY Thruway to Canada due to the long drives; so we had to find places in the USA.  So we hit just about all the areas in upstate NY except the peaks around Mt Marcy, that the Dads did not go for either.  While we wanted to get back to the pretty ladies at the trailhead store, they wanted to get away from it all, and I suspect, did not embrace the high peaks due to the crowds, just as David H noted.

But wanted to visit the peaks and climb Marcy, so years later took a solo trek. Good grief, I’d never seen so many people in the mountains,  and have seen nothing like it since, anywhere in the US or Canada.  (But admit to bypassing Yosemite).

The cause of the problem must be the equally over populated bears who are attracted to the unusual overpopulation of people in that area.  (Also, the aggressiveness of the bears could come from being surrounded by New Yorkers-hah-hah.)

So moved my trekking locales to northern Maine, doing loop trips on and off the AT.  Only one bear in many years, and that was due to my stupidity with blueberry slurp inside the tent.  Otherwise, not a single bear, though saw some docile moose cooling off in a nearby lake and was awakened once by some sloshing across the nearby stream that sounded like it could be a bear.  T’wer it so, the food was hung high in a kevlar ursack and was not molested.  There are lots of such places in the Maine mountains where trekkers and people happily occupy the turf.  (But to do Katahdin, I had to get my application in on the first day of the year. Baxter Park is quite strict, and maybe that is why it was not overrun with people and bears).  Here in Chocorua NH have seen a few bears running about while bushwhacking, but they want none of us humans, or my aussy either.

Please consider that since you have children along, Maine might make for a more safe and enjoyable trek.  The Maine Mountain Guide is still updated regularly I think, with some good maps included.  If I had to go to the high peaks in upstate NY with children along, I’d get the most impenetrable canisters around, and the adults would carry them.  Better safe than sorry.

When BPL put out a magazine years ago, there was an ultra light  canister in one issue that gave off an electric jolt to any would-be molester.  But I’m over-tech’d with enough gadgets already.                     Happy trails!

@Sam – the last time I was in the Eastern High Peaks area we were planning on climbing Marcy. We camped near Colden and approached from the southern route and might have passed >50 hikers on the way. Just past Lake Tear-in-the-Clouds you could seen Marcy’s peak and there must have been 50 people on top and maybe another 25 visible going up or down the trail near the top – insane. We decided then and there to bag it and go up Grey  – shortly after stepping off on the path up Grey there was human waste on the ground ;-(. That was my last visit to the Eastern High Peaks.

That being said – we go up to the Adirondacks at least one week every fall – recently two x 1 week trips typically. There are many areas where we may see only a 2-3 other people in a full week of hiking. The rest of the park is way under visited. Especially if you go to some of the less visited wilderness areas and aren’t climbing one of the 46. That includes the Western High Peaks area – which does see some people, but we have never seen a bear there. In fact the only place we have ever encountered a bear was in a tree next to the Northville Placid Trail as we were heading up into the West Canada Lakes Wilderness north of Piseco. It lost its nerve as we walked by and came crashing down onto the trail and ran off into the woods.

Outside of the eastern high peaks we just hang our food, or if I am solo I use an Ursack. I have never had a problem.

Ditto, David.  Though I might have to admit that the “hundred mile wilderness” from Katahdin south is a bit of a misnomer.  As is the so-called “Grand Canyon of Maine.”  But I met my first Sheltie pup on the AT below the stream (hardly a canyon), so have a soft spot for the area.

It is not that hard to get up to northern Maine – up I-95, on to  40 mile long Moosehead Lake, and beyond.  It is easy and fun to do loop trips that are half kayak and half hiking, the latter mostly on the AT.  Inflatable kayaks were first introduced in ads in the late Backpacker Magazine, and stash easily and unseen in the bush.  And it is great to be able to finish the trip right to where I started, hop in car and head home, only sometimes after driving up and back to retrieve the boat.  At one time planned to do a book titled, “Paddling the Appalachian Trail in Maine,” but too much of life intervened.  Maybe someone will write it though.