8:28 p.m. on May 8, 2006 (EDT)
About the only places that carrying a gun is illegal are the National Parks. However, discharging the gun is illegal out of season and without a license except for emergencies (and even then you may have a hard time proving it was an emergency - there have been cases where someone killed a bear in "self defense" and was fined because it was decided it wasn't really an emergency - don't even try to understand).
As Tom says, prices 25 years ago seemed tremendously expensive at the time. Remember that gas was 30 cents a gallon then vs well over $3/gal at the discount stations now, and a Mustang was about 4000 bucks (not yet up to $10k that Tom remembers). 22 years ago we bought our outrageously expensive house in the SFBay area for less than $200k. A house just across the street and 2 up is being sold for $1.7M, and it's still a 1950s tarpaper tract shack on a postage-stamp sized lot - 10 times as much in 2 decades (gee, I guess I could sell this place and live in a tent ... homeless millionaires).
As for bear canisters - well, that's what comes of expanding the urban/wilderness interface into the bears' territory (or in our local case, mountain lions - we have had 3 lions in the past 3 years within a mile of our house in the Midtown area, one of which was killed within 3 blocks of 2 elementary schools, which made national news because the cops shot the poor puddy tat). Just over the hill in Santa Cruz, there have been bears into the downtown area. The bears have become used to the presence of humans signalling food. Since they are quite intelligent, they have learned how to get at food in backpacks, cars, and recently in the Lake Tahoe area, recognizing through the windows of houses when there is food in the refrigerator (yes, bears really raiding the fridge by breaking into houses). Look on the Yosemite NP website for photos of bears breaking into cars. Seems they have learned certain cars are very easy to break into.
There are a couple of solutions. You can plan your trip to stay at campgrounds that have steel bear boxes. More and more of the campgrounds in the western US in the back country and front country have these. A number of the more popular campsites along the John Muir Trail have them. There are shelters along the Appalachian Trail and throughout Smokey Mountain that allow keeping the food from the bears (kinda amusing, folks sitting inside the shelter with a chain mesh over the entrance with the bears frolicking outside, looking at the human exhibit cowering in the back corner of their cage).
In the eastern half of the country, you can probably get away with an Ursack still, although I think it is as expensive as the canisters. Ursacks are not approved in the Sierra, Yellowstone, Glacier, or Denali, since the bears have learned to deal with those. Not all canisters on the market are approved in the Sierra (seems the bears have learned how to get into the Bear Vault, for example). Counterbalance hanging works in many areas, although Yosemite bears learned that trick years ago.
Sorry, but your homemade PVC pipe container won't be accepted in the western parks or national forests, unless you submit a sample for testing and it passes (PVC containers have never managed to pass, although they do get allowed for poop tubes in the increasing number of areas where you are required to pack out *all* human waste).
$25 for gaiters? Where? Must be on super sale. Most of the ones at REI are well over $50. As for the $75 tarp, you can get one of the blue tarps from WalMart for $10-15. Not that they last very long, but that's a lot less than $75. Then again, I just use a 3-mil plastic dropcloth. Works just fine.
Still, on your shotgun - why bother? You can't legally use it out of season, and if you practice common sense, you won't need it to defend yourself against the wildlife. I've been wandering the woods and hills for many decades and never had a problem with bear or lion (did have a few losses to raccoon and marmot, though, plus mice - and the mice got into a food bag that was hung in a tree!). I've taken hundreds of photos of griz in the wild from within 50 feet, no problem. You just have to respect their territory and understand their rules of the game. Violate the rules (as Timothy did in a big way), and you will have problems. Oh, and before you comment, I have hunted various sizes of game, up to lion, with firearms and bow (not anymore, though).
