Food and Bears

[Outdoor_Fool]

Yes, petroleum products and their derivatives like plastic can attract bears. It's not necessarily something that they will ingest, although they may give it a try, but it has an odor that will attract them. Lots of times, they will just end up rolling in it, sort of like a dog rolling on, well, you know.

 

[John Goering]

Rarely will we ever have a pack in the tent or vestibule. Given the sensitivity of a bear's nose, I'm not convinced you don't get any order off the food you're packing no matter what extent you go to to keep it isolated. We usually just put the pack covers on and hang them in a tree (or in the rocks if no trees) 5 to 6' up to keep them from getting chewed on by rodents. If a bear is going to chew them up, better there than in the tent.

 

[WasatchWill]

Just wanted to post about another OP bag option. I stumbled into these odor proof bags at Sportsmans Warehouse earlier this year. I think they are relatively new on the market. I picked some up to replace some bags that were made out of material more intended for the medical industry I had purchased through litetrail.com a while back because these new ones felt a bit more durable and they are labeled as being more thoroughly tested specifically for use in bear country and recreational use. Funny enough, I just discovered that litetrail.com now redirects to the same Amazon page for the item. Litetrail.com had shut down a while back, but it had been redirecting to a page with how to get the old clear bags via a contact on ebay/paypal or something. Side note: I also have some jumbo sizes of the litetrail bags that I line my pack with and stuff my sleeping bag and sleeping clothes into before rolling it over so as to protect them from moisture and any possible smells from anything else in my pack.

I've used Opsaks before too, but I'm not a fan of the ziploc seal they use and how the bag has to remain fairly flat to maintain the integrity of the seal. With this other style of bags, you just spin the open end to close it like a bread bag, fold it over, and put a plastic clamp, twisty tie, or rubber band over it and that shuts it all in. I find that these types of bags can accommodate more food and other items for longer trips, easier to line a stuff sack/bear bag with for hanging, and simply allow the contents in it to flex a bit better in accommodating whatever space it is to take up in your pack. You still need to be careful about food packaging and not putting anything with a sharp edge or corner.

I like that this Basecamp brand offers an assorted pack too where you can get a package containing 2 of their large bags which are big enough to swallow up week supply of well planned trail food and 3 medium bags could be good for storing toiletry items, trash, and a day's snack supply inside each. I'm impressed with many of the Amazon reviews too. I also found that at Sportsmans Warehouse, here in Utah anyway, they are surprisingly a couple dollars cheaper than what Amazon has them listed at. I'm impressed with many of the Amazon reviews too.

So, I'm fairly confident in them but will still hang for added security, whenever I'm in a good location that offers good trees to hang from. I just find that here in Utah's Wasatch and Uintas and elsewhere, good suitable trees with adequate branches high enough with good spacing from other branches around it (important for keeping your line from getting stuck and/or tangled) are very hard to come by and I just end up doing the best I can, often unable to get a proper hang, and hope for the best through the night. Never had an issue yet. I don't think it would hurt to start double bagging with these bags in these instances either.

One other thought I've considered as another option, being a father now, is how effective Diaper Genie bags would be at sealing in odors. They seem to do the job with foul-smelling diapers. I can only imagine that pulling a strip of the material from a DG refill cartridge to create a food bag might prove to be an effective odor-proof bag/liner option as well.