Bear Proof Food Storage - Ursack

The idea that a bear is going to rip into your tent for your food, with you in it, is as make believe as Santa Clause.

There is zero evidence to support that idea. In fact, if you look back at the history of our parks, the majority of people backpacking slept with their food for more than 100 years, without incident.

It is extremely rare that a bear ever breaks into a tent with humans in it. And in the few instances where that happens, there is zero proof that a food odor brought the bear in. Elk meat, sure. But not backpacking food.

Just think of all those people fishing in the Winds, fishing in Yellowstone, fishing in Alaska. The smell of fish is far stronger than your backpacking food. Fisherman get that smell on them, all over them actually. Even if they wash there hands, the smell of fish still stays on them. And then they go sleep in there tent. Wouldn't bears, who have a sense of smell 100 times greater than humans, smell the fish on the fisherman sleeping in there tent? That is a much more attractive smell to a bear than backpacking food.

What about hiking with your food in your pack? I mean, you have that huge food attractant on your back all day as you walk through bear country. Wouldn't the bears smell the food, and come chase backpackers? But that doesn't happen. So why would a bear only be interested in your food in your tent, but not on your back?

The whole concept of not sleeping with your food is to prevent governing agencies from getting sued. Just read up on Yellowstone's issues with the Old Faithful bear death in the late 1970's. It is also one extra step people can do to minimize a bear encounter.

I know too many stories. Too many people doing crazy stuff in the backcountry with grizzly bears, not in the public eye. They sleep with their food. I've had too many incidents myself with bears. Hell, we slept under our food bags for 2 nights with a grizzly bear in our camp this summer, and yet he never messed with us.

If you walk with your food on your back all day, why not sleep with it next to you?

And i'm not trying to sound cool, or be different. I almost don't want to say these things because I don't have time to argue them. I'm just speaking honestly from my heart. I don't believe sleeping with your food is anywhere as dangerous as people want to make it sound to be. And in the Wind Rivers, they don't have enough bears to have an issue. This doesn't mean leave your food un attended. And its not to say a habituated bear who has already gotten food won't become a problem. It will. All I'm saying is that you can sleep with your food, and a bear will not come into your tent for your food.

And just to be 100% clear, there is a huge difference between sleeping with your food, and leaving your food unattended in your tent.
 
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Some bold statements there, but it did always strike me funny how grizzly bears are supposedly smart enough to associate rifle shot with free carcass ('dinner bell' attacks on hunters) but can't equate people wandering around yelling 'hey bear' with a backpack full of snacks walking their way lol.
 
The idea that a bear is going to rip into your tent for your food, with you in it, is as make believe as Santa Clause.

There is zero evidence to support that idea. In fact, if you look back at the history of our parks, the majority of people backpacking slept with their food for more than 100 years, without incident.

If not for food, why do bears on occasion rip into an occupied tent at night?
 
I know too many stories. Too many people doing crazy stuff in the backcountry with grizzly bears, not in the public eye. They sleep with their food. I've had too many incidents myself with bears. Hell, we slept under our food bags for 2 nights with a grizzly bear in our camp this summer, and yet he never messed with us.

What @Joey isn't telling you is that I stayed up all night beating that bear off with a stick while everybody else was snoring away and getting their beauty rest! :D Of course then I woke up from my dream and realized we were all still alive.

Circumstances can dictate what precautions you are willing to take while in bear country. On the occasion that Joey mentioned, we had been hiking all day off-trail in a cold hard rain through some extremely nasty shit. When we reached our camp on Mist Creek, I was beginning to suffer from hypothermia and needed to get out of my cold wet clothes, hop in my tent, get calories into body and crawl into my sleeping bag to alleviate the situation. Hypothermia outweighed any concern I had about the grizzly next to us in the meadow. The area next to the bear pole was the best spot for our tents in the situation. Of course, I don't want to speak for the others in our group they may have a different opinion than me. All I know is that I slept like a rock that night without any concerns about the bear. And in addition, I found that bear hanging out in the meadow next to us for two days to be one of my best backcountry experiences in my life - I wouldn't trade it for anything.
 
I take it that hard side containers are preferred in the Winds where hanging is not possible?
Wayne


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I'm comfortable sleeping with my food anywhere that the bears aren't habituated. Non-habituated bears don't want to mess with humans. Anywhere where bears are habituated, no way jose.
 
I'm comfortable sleeping with my food anywhere that the bears aren't habituated. Non-habituated bears don't want to mess with humans. Anywhere where bears are habituated, no way jose.

How does a stranger know if the local bears will dig into my tent to get my goodies? I doubt that there are signs posted.
Wayne


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How does a stranger know if the local bears will dig into my tent to get my goodies? I doubt that there are signs posted.
Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If you see any bears playing the trumpet on the street corner with their open case out in front of them, or if they're panhandling outside the Mickey D's, you should probably hang your food :p

But seriously, research is key! There's pretty good bear information on pretty much everywhere out there. For example, I'd absolutely sleep with my food in the Wasatch or the Uintas, but in the Sierra? No way.
 
What @Joey isn't telling you is that I stayed up all night beating that bear off with a stick while everybody else was snoring away and getting their beauty rest! :D Of course then I woke up from my dream and realized we were all still alive.

Circumstances can dictate what precautions you are willing to take while in bear country. On the occasion that Joey mentioned, we had been hiking all day off-trail in a cold hard rain through some extremely nasty shit. When we reached our camp on Mist Creek, I was beginning to suffer from hypothermia and needed to get out of my cold wet clothes, hop in my tent, get calories into body and crawl into my sleeping bag to alleviate the situation. Hypothermia outweighed any concern I had about the grizzly next to us in the meadow. The area next to the bear pole was the best spot for our tents in the situation. Of course, I don't want to speak for the others in our group they may have a different opinion than me. All I know is that I slept like a rock that night without any concerns about the bear. And in addition, I found that bear hanging out in the meadow next to us for two days to be one of my best backcountry experiences in my life - I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I don't remember that part from the video.;)
 
1975. Green Lake in the Hoover Wilderness a few miles from the Yosemite NP boundary (should've known better). We had an old style pup tent with the poles inside. I placed my pack with the food in it at the head of the tent right behind the front pole. Pack then pole, then my head. You can tell what's coming now can't ya? :twothumbs: Around 0:dark:00, I felt the pole sweep out and I was breathing into tent fabric. I figured my partner had just elbowed the pole and in my hazy, exhausted, state, I just put the pole back up and went to sleep again.

Next morning I reached for my pack. No pack. Got up and looked down to the shore of the lake about 50 yards away. My brand new Kelty was down there with the zipper ripped out of the bottom compartment and the pack was covered in a congealed substance consisting of saliva, M&M bits, etc., etc. Food gone or slobbered on, pack messed up. Time to go home.

Now ya'll do what you want but I believe I will hang my food, or container it, or something besides putting in my tent.
 
If not for food, why do bears on occasion rip into an occupied tent at night?
This happens far less than you would think. And in almost every fatal attack where a bear rips into someone's tent at night and kills them, there is no food in the tent. So it has to do with the bear's mind set, and not a smell.

This is a very difficult discussion for me to have on the internet, and I really don't want to have it. It would be a much easier conversation in person, where I could easily spend 30 minutes explaining where i'm coming from. I'm much better at talking than typing, especially when I have a short amount of time to try to respond to something like this.

I was referencing bears in the Rocky Mountains, and my comment about the Winds and Beartooths are fringe grizzly bear areas. I'm not talking about the Sierra's, which have a completely different situation going on. Those bears have been exposed to food so much, that its actually being passed on in DNA to each new generation to not be afraid of humans, and to seek out food. That is because of people leaving food out unattended over many decades, and bears figured it out. That is not a problem in the Rocky Mountains yet, and we want to keep it that way, especially dealing with grizzlies. Also, in response to the bear story from Yosemite, that is not at all what I am referring too by sleeping with your food. Sleeping with it means putting inside your tent next to you, where the only way a bear can get to it is by ripping open the tent. Putting it in the vestibule, where there is nothing between your food and the bear, is a different story, especially in the Sierra's where bears are conditioned to go after food.


There is a huge difference between leaving your food un attended, and sleeping with your food. And a bear that gets food becomes a very bad problem. This year, in the Heart Lake area of Yellowstone National Park, a grizzly bear got into food that was left un attended by campers. That bear then started seeking out food, and ripped into tents over the course of the summer, because his mindset had changed. I'm not condoling this at all. Because that becomes a very dangerous situation.

My comment was also specific towards the Wind Rivers and Beartooths. I'm going to use an analogy here. Lets compare Salt Lake City to Atlanta, Georgia. There are bad guys in both of those cities. People will rob you, kill you, steal your car, or break into your house. But one of those cities has a lot more bad guys than the other. I walk at night all over Salt Lake, often times by myself. I leave the doors unlocked to both my car and house. And I don't really worry about it. Now, compare that to Atlanta. I wouldn't be comfortable walking around Atlanta at night by myself. And I would definitely lock the doors. What's the difference? One place just has a much higher concentration of bad guys. Sure, I could get into trouble here in SLC, but its a much smaller chance. Now compare that to what we are talking about. Let's call the Wind Rivers Salt Lake, and Yellowstone Atlanta. I'm not trying to hurt people's feelings, but the Wind Rivers do not have very many grizzly bears, especially up high. A few is much different that a lot. So few in fact that I don't have second thoughts about sleeping with food there. In fact, a large number of people that I know sleep with their food in the Wind Rivers, and have done so for a long time.

I have to go now. I will expand on a few more points tonight if I have time.
 
I don't really want to get into this but .02 for thought. Simply injecting my last breathe of idealism.

Is food in a tent really a people safety issue, or a bear's natural life issue? We all worry so much about ourselves, what about the bear? Is it right to question technicalities of our safety in natural spaces when the tiniest of slips will significantly impact, and maybe end, the life of a creature that lives to eat? Is it not the point of natural spaces that wild animals can live wild lives, and should we not do our part to protect that to the best possible level? If we're visitors in nature, how much should we risk impacting it for the sake of our own convenience?

I personally can't fathom the thought of messing up the life of one of these creatures. They're worth a lot more than me.

7.27 Bears-82.jpg
 
The Ursack Major arrived today from REI in record time.
This rascal is huge.
Wayne


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Because grizzly bears are smarter than humans think. They know you are in the tent, and if they rip into it, they ain't coming in there for your backpacking food.

I could expand, a lot. And I would love to for people that actually care. But why. It just doesn't seem worth it.

Enjoy your time boys. I defer all questions to @Andrew Skurka and his fan base. After all, he invented backpacking. :)
Besides, what the f**k do I know.

Now if ya'll will excuse me, i'm going to go eat a few pot brownies, drink a few beers, and live life like its the only one I get. I'm going to be smiling, and enjoy every minute of it.

Hey @Nick , please delete my account. Thanks man!

Goodbye guys. ;)
 
Because grizzly bears are smarter than humans think. They know you are in the tent, and if they rip into it, they ain't coming in there for your backpacking food.

I could expand, a lot. And I would love to for people that actually care. But why. It just doesn't seem worth it.

Enjoy your time boys. I defer all questions to @Andrew Skurka and his fan base. After all, he invented backpacking. :)
Besides, what the f**k do I know.

Now if ya'll will excuse me, i'm going to go eat a few pot brownies, drink a few beers, and live life like its the only one I get. I'm going to be smiling, and enjoy every minute of it.

Hey @Nick , please delete my account. Thanks man!

Goodbye guys. ;)

Love hearing your stuff @Joey. I've loved talking to you in real life especially.

I'm always a bit surprised when you take things so personally on here. Perhaps you don't have to spend enough time on the internet, to know not to take it so seriously. Love hearing your personal opinions, but taking so much offense when someone disagrees is what's causing the problem, not this site.

Hope to spend some trail with you in the future.
 
Love hearing your stuff @Joey. I've loved talking to you in real life especially.

I'm always a bit surprised when you take things so personally on here. Perhaps you don't have to spend enough time on the internet, to know not to take it so seriously. Love hearing your personal opinions, but taking so much offense when someone disagrees is what's causing the problem, not this site.

Hope to spend some trail with you in the future.

It's how artists are man. Comes along with the talent.
 
Joey,
I know nothing. I've learned so much from your trip reports. I've learned even more from this discussion.
I look forward to more of your trip reports. I doubt that my old bones will ever replicate one of your trips.
I can dream. Thanks so much for sharing with us.
Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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