SN,
When I was at Kearsarge Lakes I was told by the ranger there when 7 BV compromised. That is an awful lot in a small period of time but I do not remember BV ever getting their ticket unpunched.
On a personal note, I have owned a Garcia, 3 or 4 Bear Vaults...which I hated because they were a pia to open, Bearikade and a 3 - Ursacks. So, I have experience with all the major players in the game.
Kearsarge Lakes is just over Glen Pass from Rae Lakes where a bear figured out how to open a Bear Vault, just like Yellow Yellow who figured out how to pop a Bear Vault (posted by Wagga above). These stories are not well known. The NPS and NFS didn't show pictures and scare people from using Bear Vaults. No, they worked with the Bearvault company to fix the problem. Is it asking too much to work with Tom at Ursack in a similar fair manner?
At the end of the 2007 season, if I remember correctly, conditional approval was pulled...this was the summer of the aluminum insert. This brings us to the period where they stopped testing, if what was has been said in this thread is correct.
I am not privy to the correspondence between local officials of the NPS or FS; therefore, do not know if they made any suggestions to Ursack. However, I did have conversations with the principals at BV after the Kearsarge Lakes incident. It seemed to me at the time, the government was working with BV to get this thing corrected.
We all go work everyday thinking we know how the world works, NPS and FS people are no different. It is obvious they are skeptical about flexible "canisters" and show preference for though made out of carbon fiber or thermoplastics. All I ask, is Ursack be treated in the same manner as Bear Vault. These being the two companies with most of the canister failures.
