05-08-2018, 09:35 PM
+1000 on being extra careful with food. About a decade ago on a very dry year my son and I ate dinner down along the Burr Trail planning to camp the in GSE National Monument in late May. It was unusual warm so afterwards we drove up to near The Box in the southern Boulders. Never had any food out at all but my dogs woke me up at 2 am to chase off a bear. They spent 40 minutes chasing and barking at the thing treed before coming back. Each bark echoed 5 times when the perused it into The Box. The bear came back 2 more times only to get chased off each time. Molly, my little lab bull terrier mix was ecstatic to chase off the bear each time with the help of my ultrafast border collie. However it wasn’t a very restfully 2 hours until that bear finally quit coming back. In the morning I found a few hard cider bottle that were unopened about 50 yds from where we were camping. I assume some on had dumped out left over food with the unopened bottles and probably why the bear kept coming back. These dry years are always hard on bears so be extra careful. I do know a scout leader in Colorado that had one of his scouts get bitten in the leg through the tent by a bear that same dry summer. Scout the area for crap the slobs throw out - that was also a huge problem in the area that 11 yo in American Fork Canyon was camping when the black bear killed him about a dozen years ago.
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