Baggin' the Bear Bag

Hey Ya'll,

I've been wondering this for a while and I figured I might as well see what some more experienced people thought on the subject. I was recently out for a long weekend on Grandfather Mtn. here in western NC. The park is somewhat known for bear activity and many of its backcountry campsites are closed occasionally due to marauding bears. I usually go solo and cook only ramen at night and oatmeal in the morning, in my shelter with the flap open, and never use a bear hang. Ive been doing this for nearly 5 years in black bear country without an incident. The worst thing that has happened was early in my travels, a mouse ate a hole in my GORP bag when I accidentally left it out. My strategy is to "mark my territory" around my shelter, and I keep all my food deep in my pack wrapped in my rain proof contractor garbage bag. I am also extremely anal about spilling food and crumbs in my shelter and I keep it very tidy. I dont camp in campsites, I spend very little time at camp, and usually hike right up to dark, eat, sleep, and then get back on the trail very early. Am I crazy thinking this is safe? Since the mouse incident, Ive gone to extremes to make sure I dont leave any morsel of food where I camp and I havent had an issue with any animal since. I understand that out West the bears are not as scared of people and can be very aggresive when it comes to people food, so hangs are very neccessary. But in areas where bears are sparse, still shy, or non-existent, should you still hang your food?

My thinking is that since I go solo, cook very little, and am anal about my cleanliness while eating, no bears/animals should come looking for some dinner because there arent any smells to attract them. Maybe Ive been very lucky and am pushing it. In my experience, its alot easier to set up my shelter, boil a little water and ramen and go to sleep without messing with the bear hang. Any thoughts??

I think you are Chambering a Round in a .38 spinning the chamber and pulling the trigger. The answer is not a matter of why, but when! You Asked, just my opinion

I hang my food in a tree when I'm not in a canister-required area or above treeline. Once you get the hang of launching the line over a good branch, it's easy and gives a better night's sleep. Alternatively there's the Ursack.

My $0.02.

I tend to agree with Kent that you're practicing Russian roulette. Not just with your food, but with bears' lives. Once a bear gets food from humans, sooner or later it will have to be shot. Inevitably, one of these nights you are going to have a visitor. If it isn't a bear, it will be a raccoon or a rat or mouse. I hope you like holes in your shelter and/or pack!

Around here (NW Oregon), bears all go the other way in a hurry when they see a human. We all want to make sure they stay that way, which is why we keep our food hung up out of their way. Or in an Ursack (what I use).

I've also been places in the eastern US where keeping food in your shelter is inviting certain black-and-white striped critters to pay you a visit!

Yeah, don't tempt the bears. Let them live and be wild. Don't start them down the road to being like the Yosemite bears. Hanging food in Yosemite is against the rules - the bears get the food. Canisters from the approved list only.

Looking at the website for Grandfather Mt, I see they require you to hang food. So you should do that, and also include your trash, your toothpaste, any lotions or other scented items that might be of interest to a bear. Or carry a bear canister big enough to hold all these things plus your food.

For a good hang, I suggest getting the rope over a good branch well before nightfall. 50 feet of line, and a branch should allow you to hang at least 10 feet from the trunk of the tree, the branch itself should be spindly/small enough that it won't support the weight of a bear, and the food should be at least 15 feet off the ground (and hang down from the branch more than arm's length) when you're done. I use the PCT method since counterbalancing is a PITA. A carbiner and a stick is all you need in addition to the line.

This is one of the more hot-button topics that arises on various backpacking forums and draws a lot of interest and varied opinion.

Part of the issue is that so many people are "taught" fairly conservative versions of how to deal with bears, and as a sort of "universal truth" that as they find over time that bears are in fact generally not lining up to raid their food every night, IMO there can then be a potential overreaction in the other direction. Among thru-hikers, it's pretty well understood that bear encounters are rare; you can "just sleep with your food" and rarely have any issues as a result and many (most?) thru-hikers do, apart from in national parks.

The problem with this is, as OM pointed out, you're not just risking yourself, you're risking the bear's life.

I guess my current/latest opinion on all of this is that folks with relatively little experience --- it's fine for them to err on the conservative side. With a bit of experience I think one gets a better sense for what the odds are in a given area. Anywhere near where bears are habituated, and in or near national parks and the like --- be conservative as heck, and if hanging is your strategy then in those locations actually do a decent job (so often I see a sort of pathetic hand-wave in the direction of hanging that wouldn't stop most bears from getting food).

Outside of such areas, I'm still inclined to use an ursack with an odorproof liner, but it really depends on when and where, and of course one can also be concerned about rodents and racoons and such.

Be prepared for lots of authoritative and/or strongly felt responses on this one. Bottom line for me is the somewhat awkward truth that "sleeping with food works fine most times and places, but it's best in most times and places to protect against bears getting your food anyway".

Places with set regulations on what to do about food storage will also fine you. Sometimes really heavily - Yosemite rangers can slap you with a $5,000 fine if they see you flagrantly ignoring their food storage regulations. That's a really expensive backpacking trip. And if it happens that the bear trashed your car coz you left a wrapper on the seat, the fine comes in addition to the cost of car repairs, towing, etc. A good 95% of bear damages occur in the frontcountry in Yosemite - ie, parking lots and campgrounds.

So there are multiple considerations at work. A set rule (which Grandfather Mt has) is usually there because there is a significant enough problem that they felt it warranted a rule. Rules like that can have a lot of consequences.

Don't lure yourself into a false sense of security. Bears can pick up scents from far away that you couldn't detect if they were under your nose. Your gear may appear to be without odor to you, but not to a bear.

Do the right thing. Protect your food for the benefit of yourself and the bears.

Everyone's yakking about protecting yourself.

Let me be honest.. I don't care a lot about you protecting yourself.. I don't mean it in a nasty way, I think you should be free to take whatever chances you want with your own keester.

I *do* care about the bear. and if the bear gets into it with you the bear's toast. simple. they'll shoot it.

I care very much as well about *me* and other hikers that might want to continue the sport and visit your area. and nothing disgusts me more than a gorgeous area like Yosemite in california that has been made very inconvinent for hikers due to the careless actions of people who have made it where conventional bear precautions don't work at all anymore. Your actions can wreck the sport for others.

Hang your food properly, unless you're just a selfish jerk, which I'm hoping you aren't.

So just in case you think that someone on this board might take a different position, I'll weigh in here and add my voice to what everyone else has said. It only takes one idiot to kill a bear. Don't be that idiot.

I agree with you, but find that it's much more persuasive to folks who could care less about a bear to point out that there are also consequences for *them.*

I care more about the bear than they do. They care about their wallet and their convenience, ie not losing a few granola bars and Mountain House they paid #$% money for. If I told the yokels who are just getting into backpacking they need to worry more for the bear, they'd call me a treehugger and ignore me.

And when along come folks I can tell will care about the bear and the future of the wilderness and Leave No Trace, I tell them more about damage it does to bears, and they run right out and buy an approved canister.

In this thread, I have no idea what the OP does or does not care about, but all other points had been brought up - so I mentioned the possibility of fines for breaking existing regulations in addition to them.

Hey Yall,

I had no idea that people felt to passionately about this. I apologize if I offended or upset anyone with this post. That was not my intentions. I would hate for my actions to cause harm to animals or people and in turn give backpackers in my area a bad reputation. Long story short, I'll be bear baggin' it from here on out. Thanks.

Hey there,

You're not the problem here, honestly. People do feel pretty strongly about the subject, but it's a good question you ask, if only because it's an honest one - for me in California it's a big hot button because of the huge problems we have with bears in certain areas and no one can agree what to do about it.

There's the ultralight crowd who want to hike the length of the Sierra Nevada storing their food in their tent. There's the legion of bears in Yosemite that have been trained *for generations* by people to expect handouts from people - look up on youtube the old promos of Yosemite from the 40s, in black and white, showing people shoveling food in the mouths of a long line of black bears who stand and wait for the goodies - the whole movement to let bears be wild is fairly recent. There's the bear in Rae Lakes, in Kings Canyon, that can pop lids off BearVaults. Once bears get a taste for that lovely high calorie people food it's all over for them. And yet, here in my hometown, people ignorant of this will go to Yosemite and leave food under a rock because they don't want to carry a *big heavy bear can* - Yosemite won't give you a backpacking permit without a bear can! the folks leave it in the trunk of the car. And the people lose their food, and the ranger issues a fine, and the bear is one step closer to being shot, skinned, chopped up and sent to a university to be studied. Because if the bear stops simply being assertive in seeking food and starts being aggressive, that's what happens to them. Bears die in Yosemite because of people's lazy ways. They also cause thousands of dollars of property damage breaking into cars for the french fries kids leave under the seats. The cost to the park for all the bear proof lockers and trash bins must be huge.

All that could have been avoided, and in other parks, it should be avoided with proper food storage practices. It truly angers me when people show up for my hiking group outings in Yosemite and have a blase attitude about this - it's just one symptom of a larger problem that will eventually destroy the natural wildernesses.

But I'm not angry at you for asking the question. I'm glad you did. It shows you had some amount of concern. Others wouldn't ask, they'd just go out and let a bear have their food.

Thanks Lori. Nice job.

Short story

Was near Tinker Mountain (Roanoke, VA) on the AT over President's Day, and my hiking buddy didn't want to hang his food. It worked out ok the first night, but he got visited by a deer in his tent the second night.

Lori, thank you for the "how high" answer - I've been debating how much is enough for a little while, and that helped.

Sincerely

Steadman

No problem, Banjopickin! I'm really glad you asked the question! It's a hot topic in a lot of places, and deserves to be put out here every now and then to make everyone aware!

Bravo, your description is much more effective than mine! Knowledge,is always the key! I sincerley thank you,as Ihave always understood the philosophey. I have not always known the reason. I have learned a bit more fuel today!

I didn't mention the bears that kamikaze dive hung bear bags - friends of mine have had that happen to them! The bear will climb in the tree and leap at the bear bag, catching it in midair, tearing it from the limb and falling to the ground with it.

It's like they turn into serious "fast food junkies" and the lengths to which they will go are such that people refuse to believe - but just because it's never happened to me or you, does not mean it will never happen.

I warn people not to leave their backpack unattended or to turn their back on what they are doing in certain parts of Yosemite. In Little Yosemite Valley, bears lurk behind trees - you can be sitting just feet from your lunch in progress, turn away to get something, and the bear will race out and snatch up your food and run! Four different people last year described to me how they had put down their backpack for a few minutes to go take a leak, and returned to see a bear racing off with their backpack - it ends with the bear tearing apart the pack and the abrupt need to hike back to the car carrying what's left of your expensive gear. You're expected to pick up after the bear when he's done - leave no trace, after all. Since late 2009 there has been a posting in the Tuolumne Meadows backpacker campground for hikers staying there to put their entire pack inside the bear lockers. Bears started dragging them off even when empty of food. The bears know what a backpack is by sight, just like they know what an ice chest is. So you are advised to cover an empty ice chest left in the car with a blanket. It doesn't matter if it smells like food anymore.

This is the extreme of the extreme - but it shows what might happen elsewhere, if you don't nip it in the bud. It's much easier just to store the food and trash to defeat the slight chance of a bear getting it BEFORE the bear happens across the poorly stored food and gets curious, sniffs around, takes a taste... and repeats the process with each succeeding backpacker who also gets careless about food storage, until it's a habit. Eventually you have a bear that teaches its cubs how to break into cabins, trash bins, steal food bags (mama bears will send cubs up trees the mama can't climb for food bags) and the pattern is now set. And the bear lockers start to appear in parking lots. This has happened in Sequoia-Kings NPs, where the bear canister rule is for specific problem areas of the park rather than universal, but you will be strongly encouraged to use them everywhere including the surrounding national forests.

When a leaf falls in the woods:

The eagle sees it.

The deer hears it.

The bear smells it.

I never thought about hanging food from a thinner tree because it cannot support the weight of some bears. I'll keep that in mind next time. I've made dumb moves before having powerbar, beef jerkey, or cashew in my pocket while in the tent for snack. With remainder of my food hanging on tree or bear cable. I haven't had a run in and I would love to keep it that way.

My friend forgot to put his cherry flavored softchew Tums© in the bear bag. We were sitting in the tent at 10pm in a hard downpour when he realized. He pulled them out of his pocket and the whole tent smelled like cherries I made him eat them all, I think I ate a few too