Re: [Paddlewise] stowing food & little critters

At 06:07 AM 11/23/99 -0800, Mel Grindol wrote:
>>From: Jerry Hawkins <jhawkins_at_cisco.com>
>>

>When we were at Ross lake we had arrived at our campsite and were hauling 
>gear up from the kayaks.  I was hungry and had snagged a bag of peanuts out 
>of the bear cannister and was happily munching away.  Julie yelled that she 
>needed help.  I set the bag of nuts on the picnic table and walked down to 
>the kayaks helped her and we walked back up.  Total elapsed time: 5 minutes 
>tops.
>
>My bag was missing.  Julie laughed and pointed under the table.  A ground 
>squirrel had dragged the plastic bag off the table, gnawed through it and 
>was eating nuts.  He promptly ran, but he had succeeded in getting a few nuts.

Several people have mentioned racoons but there are is also a very similar
looking creature that I've encountered a few times while backpacking in 
the Sierra Nevada mountains.  It's a ring-tail cat and looks very similar to
a racoon.

On one trip in Sequoia National park a couple of friends of mine went for a 
weekend and brought along a backpacking newbie.   We had been telling
bear stories (some of them were even true) all day during the first day there
for the "benefit" of the newbie.  That night, just a bit after we had
retired to
our tents,  I heard  "John!  I think there's a bear out there".  I'm thinking,
"sure, sure, how go to sleep" when I heard some noise myself.  I grabbed
my flashlight and took a peek and and there was a fuzzy creature with
a ringed tail with it's head in my backpack.  I unzipped the tent and yelled
at him and he looked up and I could see that he had found my hostess fruit
pie because there was berries on his face.  When I started to climb out of
the tent he started to back away from my sleeping bad but it didn't let go
of that fruit pie.  It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in the
woods.

A week later I was staying in an A-frame cabin on the eastern slope (in
the June Lake area) when another ringtail cat came up onto the deck
and looked into the sliding glass door.  I had some leftover trout from a
really good day of fishing so I tossed one onto the deck.  He grabbed it
and ran off the deck but was back a few minutes later standing on his
hind feet with both paws on the sliding glass door begging for more.


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