That's absolutely true, and as I said, the answers I got to my questions were really all the right answers. I'm serious too. I'm not sure why I even called because if asked, I would have answered the same myself. I would have had to unless I'd been there recently.

I bring it up more to point out the contrast between the common recommendations we read and realities of what to expect. The reality is, there is no way the local Forest Service could possibly know, other than if there was a problem bear, which is so uncommon here that I've never heard of one bothering backpackers here. If there had been one I'm sure she would have told me about it. The rest of my questions were really too location and time specific to answer, but still what we're told to ask.