wrote


Since she can fence, I'd advise a hiking staff. It should be all the
protection she'll need from people, maybe pepper spray, considering
the reputation of the Yosemite bears...

LOL for some reason you reminded me of one of my great displays of
"manhood" as a young man. I went for a backpack, with a nice young lady,
into and past Little Yosemite valley ( home of more bears than any place I
know ). Somehow, I got some bad water or bad food, but ended up very sick
and back in the bushes, nasty stuff coming out one end or the other, for
most of the second day ( trust me, very sick in the backcountry is zero
fun ).

That night, as I tried to rig a way to suspend our packs, I tied a rock to
a small rope, wound up and let go to launch the rock over a high limb. Ah,
but I was standing on the rope and the rock came back into my face with
enough force to cause bleeding and extremes of language ( I can still see
the nice young lady fighting back laughter, as she washed off the blood :-)

That night she woke me ( I had been VERY sick and was damn near dead
asleep ) with "Larry, I hear a noise outside." I, apparently, ( what she
told me, I have no memory of even waking ) shined the flashlight out of the
tent and reported, "It's just a bear eating our food." and went back to
sleep. She thought I was kidding and trying to scare her, but we woke to
two ruined packs and zero food left ( not true, I found one lemon drop ) and
a two day walk back to the car ( which we did in one long one with little
weight and lots of motivation :-)

He-man Larry ... that great woodsman and protector G

PS .. The same nice young lady and her sister later scared off a bear while
my climbing buddy and I took an afternoon nap on a trip to climb Balloon
Dome ... the girls were our electronic gizzmos of that time, there in case
we got in trouble .... the nice lady is now my lovely bride, btw