have any of you tried the personal alarms that women carry on their purses,i hang one of these in my tent when iam backpacking in bear country,they make a loud shrill noise and is as loud as having a gun go off in your ears,weigh about 3 ounces. i keep my food in the tent i get hungry.

My life and well being are too important to me, to risk it with a piece of shit like this.
Grizz

Dear garydn,

GET YOUR FOOD OUT OF YOUR TENT!!!!

Frans

quote:

Originally posted by garydn:
have any of you tried the personal alarms that women carry on their purses,i hang one of these in my tent when iam backpacking in bear country,they make a loud shrill noise and is as loud as having a gun go off in your ears,weigh about 3 ounces. i keep my food in the tent i get hungry.

Keeping food in your tent is an excellent method of entering the bear food chain.

No food,no toothpaste, no nothing edible in the tent. No cooking near the tent. I've been in country where the bears are thick as fleas and I follow these rules always. I've never had problems. I won't even let the kids have food when they play in the tent in the back yard.

the chef

With all the warninigs from NPS USFS and everybody else, you still keep food in your tent?
Crap why don't you just tie a pork-chop around your neck and be done with it.

OK, I guess I should be at least somewhat helpful. A little further down this page is a topic on hanging food bags away from bears. Please read it. HINT HINT

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm........pork

I think he's kidding guys!!! Give him a break. Maybe he's like me and occasionally some of us smoke a little ganja before we go nighty nigh when we're camping out. Then it's awfully hard to avoid the munchies!!! Although I still do.

I would love to think he's just kidding except that every summer and fall I run into some campers who do the that very thing - keep food in the tent at night! One of my favorite places to camp is north of Yellowstone Park and is a very remote campsite. You can legally drive to the area, pretty much 4x4. Anyway, I always stay in my small hard-side trailer because every year I've found either grizzly tracks or very large black bear tracks in and around the camping area. One day a couple of college kids desided to tent camp in the area, cooked right next to the tent, stored the food inside the tent at night "to keep any animals from getting at it" oh, yeah and a horizontal buggie, she was the vocal type. Talk about a pork chop around the neck. They also had no bear spray, no firearms and no clue. I had a nice talk with them and evidnetly they had been up there a couple of times and in various other "bear use" areas with "no problems". I guess that the fact that bear attacks are rare and you can get away with bad habits with food storage seems to make it easy for people to slip into a attitude of "not me" or "that's blown way out of proportion". I've never had any problems or even a hint of problem, but then again I never do anything to invite problems either.

garydn,

If the alarm you use gives you the confidence to sleep well in bear country then I say go for it, maybe it might be of use for other's too. I've spent a few sleepless nights in the bush with bear's nearby (like inches from my tent, even pushing their noses against it) and react according to my gut feeling as far as making noise or being quiet....so far so good for me, though I have considered a fog horn in the past.

On the food issue, It's your hide and I myself am guilty of keeping a snack or two in my tent as well, not all the time, but none the less food has found it's way in my tent, which is not the best idea. My food is never farther than 30 yard's (most of the time much closer) from my tent and usually down-wind and within sight from the front door of my tent, yes I'm protecting MY food and game meat. I do keep a CLEAN camp and my food and trash is well covered or in bear proof drums to keep enticing food smell's to a min

When I camp in bear infested area's (most of the time) I tend to be somewhat of a light sleeper and my camp site's carefully choosen, but some of the time you have no choice but to camp in the line of fire, I make sure my rifle is handy (never one chambered when sharing a camp with others) as well as my headlamp and will bail out of the tent asap-if need be.

Happy camping and thanks for sharing your bear alarm-Ron

For me a big A$$ dog or two.

HunterMontana:

I am glad you want to be warned before you get your ass torn up.

I prefer to keep my food above the ground between two big trees or out away from my tent.


I have a small electric fence shocker and 6 fiberglass rods and a coil of fence wire.

I put up a ten foot peremeter around my tent. Bears don't like electricity. This works on blacks, grizzlys, polar bears and wolves. I also sleep with a pistol in my sleeping bag and a .375 H&H or 12 gauge in my tent.

I once had to shoot a brown bear from about about 12 inches. Tripple OOO buck makes a clean round hole upon entry and makes abour a 4 inch hole in the lower back of the skull. The brown bears after being shot point blank just above the left eye fall back and flop around like a house cat that has been shot with a 22. The one I encountered lost all interest in me but it took about 3 minutes before he stopped cutting a shine. The paperwork, polygraph and interogation by the tropers was very time consuming and gruling. My Alaskan neighbor 4 miles away advised for me to violate the law and not report it if I ever had another simular experience. It is a real test in being a law abiding citizen. I don't want to go to jail or be eaten alive.
Longshot