Where do you eat when it's raining?

I'm just starting to get into backpacking, and I'm learning a lot, thanks a lot to this forum.

One of the things I've learned is about the 100 yard triangle for bear safety.

But a question occurs to me: What do you do if it's raining for long periods of time? I can see setting up a kitchen tent 100 yards away from your sleeping tent if you're car camping, but what about when it's just you and your small tent in the back country?

Where do you cook / eat?

We cook in the vvestibule of the tent...and eat in the tent as well.

Admittedly, we've had to do this once in the last seven years...because it doesn't rain that much in the Sierra, and when it does, it's usually between 2 and 5 in the afternoon...

I take it you have to be especially careful to avoid spills, but won't the smell of food linger? Do you still hang your smellables away from the tent?

I guess there aren't many options, huh?

I will likely do most of my backpacking in the northeast, probably in the Adirondacks, so I won't have to worry about grizzlies. But there are plenty of black bears in the Adirondacks.

Thanks for the info, I really am a raw newb, so everything is really new to me.

I "cook" aka boil water and rehydrate food in the rain. If I have a poncho it makes a good kitchen shelter. No sense in polluting the tent with smells... we often camp where there are mice, raccoons or other small creatures that gnaw.

Rarely cook when backpacking so, rain doesn't matter. Unless it's raining constantly, daily, I'll skip cooking if rain starts.
If I were to cook in the rain, it would be under my hammock rain fly, pitched low to the ground, but high enough to sit up. Less splash/wind that way.

This is actually a question about trip planning.

If the forecast calls for a small chance of scattered showers, you would either wait till the shower ended, then cook as usual, or you could eat tomorrow's lunch for supper, then eat supper the next day (perhaps as breakfast, or as lunch.)

If your forecast calls for continual rain, and you choose to go anyhow (or if it calls for a day or two of pretty solid rain during a weeklong trip), you would simply add a tarp to your gear for that trip, and pitch it wherever you wanted the kitchen. The size would depend on how many of you were going; 8x10 or 10x12 is usually sufficient for 2 or 3 people (without overcrowding.) Silnylon tarps aren't prohibitively heavy or crushingly expensive. A tarp has the additional advantage of giving you a dry place to eat lunch on the trail.

I never cook in the tent or vestibule. I tend to spill stuff and I have actually blown up a stove before, so for safety reasons, I am away from the tent. I have usually found some relatively dry spots under trees if I have to eat when it is raining. A few times I have eaten in the tent (after everything was cooked). But I inevitably spill food so I rarely do this.

This is actually a question about trip planning.

I agree with this. However, I tend to go out for long trips and it isn't always possible to plan equipment from a weather forecast, so I've had to improvise responses to wet weather.

Like wandering daisy, I do not ever cook in my tent or vestibule. I wait for a break in the weather. If that doesn't work, I seek a sheltered spot under tree cover. If that doesn't work, I will consider substituting a non-cooked meal for a cooked one and adjust my future meals accordingly.

As for eating in my tent, I avoid it, too. Eating a Clif bar or handful of trail mix in my tent as I wait out a rain shower seems admissible to me. Eating a steaming supper full of delicious aromas is over the line and I don't ever do that.

nelamvr6,

I spend a majority of my time in the Adirondacks. The bears up here are quite adept at figuring out hung food, especially in the popular areas. They are also creatures of habit and will visit the areas which have been fruitful. Again these are the high use areas. The problem with the distance issue in the high use areas is your sleeping spot was likely someone else's dinner spot the night before. Lastly, they are hunted and thus have a healthy fear of man. So all in all, if you keep a clean camp and avoid the high use areas you will probably never see a bear of ever have an issue. I would still store your food properly at night. In the EHPZ, hard sided bear canisters are required. I would also use them in other high use areas such as near state campgrounds. In the more back country areas, a properly hung bag or an ursack is sufficient. Like others I don't worry about eating that far away from my camp during long term rain. And like others I am usually not making the most elaborate meals at that time either.

A 10oz tarp comes in handy in this situation. If you're paranoid about critters sniffing around the tent, a tarp in location away from tent will work! I've done this before in Virgina Highland. Someone in the group bought a large tarp for all us to gather under while it storm. Then when it came time to sleep we went to our own shelters.

I don't think I'd worry much about it. I looked into it and you aren't at all likely to get killed by a bear in the wilds of New York. It's only happened once since the 1870s there. (source)

Here in Missouri and Arkansas no one has been killed by a wild black bear in all those years.

I don't worry that a bear will invade my tent and eat me if I were to cook in the vestibule. It's more that I don't want to attract a bear to my campsite for any reason. Over and above that, I don't want a bear investigating my tent for food whether I am in it or not. There's no good can come of that, even if what does come of it would certainly fall far short of my death at the paws and jaws of a bloodthirsty bruin.

I'm not making light of the danger, but facts do help put the risks into perspective and the odds of being attacked are really very low and that is worth noting.

It's also worth noting that most black bear attacks do not result in serious injury.

The odds of being attacked decrease a lot when you're away from campgrounds where bears are known to hangout, decrease even more if you're not feeding them at those hangouts, and even more again if you're not alone.

The odds of you being with a group and getting attacked while backpacking are almost nil. I have never heard of it happening here in the Ozarks or Ouchitas.

I could not find any statistics for New York on attacks, but I did find only one death recorded in all those years 140 years that records have been kept. More people have actually been killed by Polar Bears in zoos in New York than by wild black bears during those years.

I don't think any of the members here have been attacked by a black bear. W_D has chased more than a few off, but she wanders around where there's lots of them and they're a lot more accustom to seeing people who aren't shooting at them all the time.

I could be wrong, but I can't find anything that indicates there's even a moderate risk of getting attacked by a bear in New York. It looks to me like the risk is almost nonexistent.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't take normal precautions, I just wouldn't worry about it much.

I don't think any of the members here have been attacked by a black bear.

True. But I have been very unsettled by a tiny bear cub that walked out into the trail directly in front of me and fell over.

I didn't stop to inquire if it was okay. I removed myself from its vicinity. The mama bear made no appearance to check my credentials. Yet, I am still rather happy about it, even if she was a fairly casual parent.

Please forgive my ignorance, what is the "EHPZ"?

Thanks for all the info guys, this really helps!

I camped at Blue Mountain Lake and there were camp bears everywhere. I used a bear can tied to a tree and cooked my food over by the nice people who were always screaming and letting their kids run loose..Long Lake and Tupper Lake I had no problems at those so cooked in the vestibule..

eastern high peaks zone

Yes, EHPZ is the Eastern High Peaks Zone. Thanks anicinabe.

Blue Mt Lake, especially the State campground areas get a lot of bear activity. If I were a bear, those are places I would go for an easy meal too.

nelamvr6,

I tend to camp alone and away from regular campsites (except on the AT (it's not really practical when thru-hiking).

I have never been compulsive about The Triangle and never been bothered (by critters).

I don't use a tent, so no cooking in the vestibule. Like others, I will often switch to cold food in case of serious rain. My poncho is also my shelter, and I carry rain gear to boot, so if I really want to cook, and the rain's not too serious, I just find a nice large tree, twenty five or thirty yards from camp and sit under it to boil water and eat.

I try to keep food off my clothes, but again, I'm not compulsive about it. On the AT, I eat right at the shelter like everyone else (since it's already as contminated is it can get).

Best, jcp

This is pretty close to what I do. Most of the time, I have been able to find somewhat dry spots under trees. Dry enough to cook. I also have a tarp, so setting that up isn't a problem. An umbrella is also helpful here.

I am probably Like a lot of people I carry a tarp wherever I go and camp in an area that has trees so I can hang the tarp up above my tent and have an area to sit out of the rain so I can sit and use a camping stove to eat.

Tarp strung between trees. Serves as shelter for everyone during down time, so you don't have to spend an entire rainy afternoon/evening stuck in a tent, which is kind of a drag.