Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board help, my car smells like pie.

So if I have this right??...I'm to make a sardine paste, pick up a roadkill skunk - stuff it with mothballs and coffee, find the Truck of Fun - smear it with honey, and then rent a car for the drive home??? This hiking stuff is much more complicated than I ever imagined!!! I might have to go back to rocket science

Eka, I think your safest and best bet is to find someone else to drive and you pay for the gas(oline)! Good luck and have fun!

Seriously, I'm coming to Bishop to work for a month at NIH. I really don't have a choice but to bring my car. Honestly, I will attempt to clean my car so completely that there is no food odor left and just hope that works. I'll let you all know. It's been fun to read the suggestions though (the sardine paste was my fav).

so....one more theoretical option.....

leave the smelly bear-bait car in Bishop.

walk to Whitney from there

after all, John Muir climbed Whitney via Mountaineers Route from Independence.

Another option is to park it at Whitney Portal with all the windows open all the way. Then after you get back, have it detailed to remove the bear smell. At least that way they won't peel the doors off.

I agree, don't leave anything valuable, don't leave any food or associated food items in the car and leave all the windows down all the way. I've never had a problem (unless it rains).

Really, nothing will get rid of a food smell well enough that a bear can't smell it. Use a nalgene bottle one time for hot chocolate, wash it like crazy, and over a year later a bear will still find it worth tearing up a backpack for. An expensive backpack too!

Besides it would be a shame to spend all that time and money cleaning your car and then find a big smelly pile of bear poo on your backseat.