Well to be clear it was last September I hiked the High Sierra Trail in 4 days and wanted to go light weight so I didn't bring a bear barrel, instead I choose locations to camp that had bear boxes, Hamilton Lake, kern Hot Springs, Wallace Creek, then yes I was passing through that location on my way out.
Unless new laws have been passed which I heard they were trying it's not required to have a bear barrel entering those trail heads, other then Yosemite which is mandatory for the whole park the rest of the Sierra other then designated locations they aren't mandatory, this one ranger didn't seem happy to tell me that when I asked once at Lodgepole if they weren't required, I even ran across some hikers that were annoyed when they found out they had been falsely told they were required.
I honestly don't know about the allowed uses of boxes being only for through hikers, this of course only applying to the locations along the PCT, but as I understand from talking to various rangers that the primary push for making canisters mandatory in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is because of pressure from groups concerned with minor violations in the wilderness laws, they are arguing that the bear boxes are man made structures and the law does not allow any man made structures in the wilderness so they are debating on removing all bear boxes, almost all the rangers I have talked to agree that it would be a major under taking to remove all those boxes and it's a major waste of resources.
I have to admit that while I understand the logic of a bear not playing with your food at all it's a new one for me, it seems to go against the very idea that you just place your bear barrel on the ground away from your camp, it seems that we shouldn't hold that idea against the Ursack but place it under the same responsibility category as counter balance, your responsible for placing or securing your Ursack in a way that a bear cannot carry it away, after all this is the only thing that holds it back.
