I like the Ursack idea and may just get one, it's a nice light weight option although it needs a bit more care in placement so a bear doesn't carry it off.
I got an ear full from a ranger while I passed Timberline Lake because I did not have a bear barrel, I insisted that I knew bear barrels were mandatory for over night stay in the Whitney Zone but I was not camping there, she insisted that I was already in the Whitney Zone at Timberline Lake and that it covers down to Crabtree Meadows (not true), although I had stayed that night at Wallace Creek the simple fact that I had an over night permit and was passing through the Whitney Zone made her take down my information and claim I would probably get a fine in the mail, well it never came of course
Hard to tell what happened there, but there may have been a misunderstanding. In the area you were headed to (presumably above timberline -- the ecozone, not the lake...) you're required to have a canister because it's not possible to hang or secure your food correctly. There's no boxes up there either. Technically, that's true of Whitney summit, but I'm not sure what I'd do if I were the ranger. But I absolutely would enforce that for Guitar to the switchbacks. Bears go everywhere... .
And the "well I have an Ursack" wouldn't cut it either (for me -- some of you may note that I'm getting kinda testy about this willful ignoring of our well-reasoned regulations). Ursack is being kind of misleading here. You can have the thing, but in Sequoia Kings park, you can't use it any differently than a nylon bag. It has to be either hung correctly; in a bear box or, where canisters are required, also in a bear box. You can't leave it out on the ground as you would a canister. This just in from the head biologist at Sequoia Kings:
It cannot be used for food-storage in any of the canister required areas including Charlotte to Forester. It could only be used as a food bag where people counter-balance or in a locker. It is not authorized for food storage.
Here's the thing that keeps getting lost in these tangent discussions. The idea is to keep food away from bears so they are off doing their nuts & berries & bugs thing; and, not incidentally, bothering hikers all night long. Canisters and bear boxes have had a dramatic -- and I mean dramatic -- positive effect on that. Throughout the Sequoia Kings backcountry, there are now only a small number of bear/food incidents where there used to be over 1,000, when compared to only 10 years ago. Twenty years ago, maybe as many as 1/3 of campers in the Charlotte/Kearsarge, Forester area would lose their food to bears.
Ignoring it or blowing off the local ranger may work in the sense that you might not get your food taken that night, but it's because everyone else has and is obeying the rules and the bears or off doing their bear thing.
George
