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In the mid 70s, I was hiking in the Cascades near the old mining town of Holden where my dad mined copper in the late 40s to pay for college. I met a fellow hiker and we decided to head over to an alpine lake. He had a big backpack since he was going to be out for a week or so, but I only had a small daypack. He left his backpack with all his grub near the mine and we headed out to the lake.

When we got back a couple hours later, his backpack was FULL of chipmunks chowing down on all of his food. It was like a Disney cartoon with all those silly chipmunks popping up out of his pack and looking around like “Huh? Oh, geez, he’s back! Scatter, guys!” There were chipmunks evacuating that pack like crazy and running all around. I never did find out how he managed the rest of his trip.

Funniest wildlife thing I ever saw!

In the mid 70s I backpacked in Yosemite NP with a couple of friends--starting from White Wolf and hiking down to Pate Valley (about 4,000 ft lower). We had planned to hike for about 7 days but the first night the bears destroyed most of our food so we stayed one more day in Pate Valley and then hiked back to White Wolf. We tried to hang our food up high but all the branches within reach had been broken off by being used by earlier hikers.

Seeing bears close up when we were trying to eat dinner made me re-evaluate my opinion of Yogi Bear.

One National Park in California I enjoyed hiking in was Lassen. It wasn't crowded once you got on the trails--but it has been more than 40 years since the last time I was there.