Musings on Storing Food

It’s always one of the decisions I waffle over the most when preparing my gear for an upcoming hike, and it’s one I’m currently pondering once again as I get ready to leave for another hike in several days- what am I going to carry my food in?

A lot of factors are involved in making the decision.  How much food am I bringing?  Are there black bears where I’m going, and if so, have there been any bear “incidents?”  How lazy do I anticipate being?  How willing and/or able am I to carry extra weight?

Many times, it’s a tough call.

Three of the typical options are a ZPacks food storage bag with bear bagging kit, an Ursack, and a bear canister (in this case a Wild Ideas Blazer).  I recently used a Wild Ideas canister on my AT section hike.

If you’re fairly new to backpacking, you may not have your pack weight down enough yet to where you’re willing to carry a 2-3 lb. bear canister, but at the same time you probably aren’t skilled at doing a bear hang either.

And wth is a bear hang anyway?

See, there’s enough involved here to paralyze you.

OPTION 1:  Food bag.

A food bag such as the ZPacks cuben offering is probably what you’ll see most often on the AT and especially at other sites unless you’re in certain areas that require bear canisters such as the Adirondacks or Yosemite.  They’re simple- you stuff them with your food items and roll it up and stick it in your pack.  Even when filled they’re somewhat malleable; you can always fit them in your pack.  However, in an area with bears you’re supposed to hang the bag, and that involves finding a tree with an appropriate limb and a whole bunch of other things that aren’t necessarily easy to manage (There are many how-to videos on YouTube, such as this one HERE).  In my experience, most people play the odds and don’t fool with it, and end up sleeping with their food.  That works 99.9% of the time.  That other 0.01% of the time, maybe a bear gets your food, if not you.  And once it gets a taste of human food (or flesh LOL) it’ll be back again, and the next hikers will suffer for it, and ultimately THE G MEN will kill the bear.  No winners here.  I think it’s perfectly acceptable to sleep with your food in an area that doesn’t have bears.  In an area with bears, i.e. much of the AT, I think you should hang or use one of the other 2 options.  My personal experience and being honest with myself, I don’t like fooling around with a hang at the end of a day.  I want to rest, eat, and flop into a shelter or tent.  Caveat- you WILL in certain places find campsites with bear cables (basically a super easy way to hang your bag) or bear-proof food storage lockers.

The big advantage of using a bag is that it’s the lightest option.  The ZPacks bag with a bear-bagging kit (rock sack, mini carabiner and spectra cord) weighs a mere 3.4 oz.  A big disadvantage is that if you don’t hang the bag, you can never leave it unattended.  Yogi will get it while you’re off getting water, or more likely Mickey and his mouse friends will.

OPTION 2:  Ursack

An Ursack is a much thicker bag made of some sort of military grade spectra weave that is almost impermeable to bear teefies.  The standard model weighs 7.6 oz.  They recommend that you use an odor-proof OpSack bag as an interior lining, which makes it a little more futzy to use.  It also requires you to tie a proper knot, take the bag away from camp, and tie it to a strong branch so that a bear won’t drag it away.  An Ursack is flexible enough to fit into any pack, and it offers significant added protection against the menace of mice, raccoons and the like.  I tend to favor this option when I’m hiking somewhere where I know there is the occasional bear, but no incidents have been reported.  You can read more about the Ursack HERE.

OPTION 3:  Bear Canister

Hikers generally bristle when required to use a bear can.  They are by far the heaviest option, and they are also hard and inflexible.  Some packs have difficulty holding them either vertically or horizontally within the pack, and even if they do, bear cans take up a lot of room.  And if you don’t cushion them within your pack, you’ll feel them against your back, and I can attest to the fact that this is a PITA.  PIT Back actually.  But hikers are also seeing more and more areas where bear canisters are required.  At this very moment, North Carolina is considering requiring them in their national forests, which will impact portions of the AT.

A popular model is Bear Vault, made of a very tough polycarbonate plastic I believe, with too big of a circumference for B’rer Bear to get it into his mouth.  The BV 450 weighs 2 lbs. 1 oz. and has a 440 cubic inch capacity (compared to 850 for the ZPacks bag and 650 for the Ursack Major).  The BV 500 weighs 2 lbs. 9 oz. and has a 700 cubic inch capacity, which can hold up to 9 days worth of food if you pack meticulously.

I personally use the lightest and by far the most expensive option- Wild Ideas.  Their bear cans sell for $200-300 or more, and are made from some kind of space age lightweight composite material that bears can’t bite through.  Their Weekender weighs 1 lb. 15 oz. with a 650 cubic inch capacity.  The specs for the Blazer (what I use) are 750 cubic inches and 2 lbs. 1 oz., and the Expedition is 900 cubic inches and 2 lbs. 4 oz.

I used the Blazer on my recent NOBO section hike into Damascus because I was passing through some areas with recent bear problems.  While I didn’t love carrying the extra weight, it was very simple to utilize, and I’m leaning toward using it on future AT section hikes.  Given how rapidly the bear population is expanding, it’s probably only a matter of time before bear canisters are required at most places, including the entire AT.

One small bonus with bear canisters is that they make decent camp chairs.

I also need to emphasize that you are FAR more likely to lose food to mini-bears than to an actual bear.  Mice can chew through almost anything, and once they get into your food bag they will eat plenty of your food and then poop 50 times their body weight all over the rest.  Raccoons can be a problem as well.  In certain places out west, marmots, ringtail cats and ravens can also leave you hungry.  Regardless of bears, make sure your food is secure.

Anyway, this is definitely a HYOH (hike your own hike) topic.  You’ll have to get out there and find out what works for you.