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Hello SPers. I'm going to be starting from East Glacier and hiking west ~150 miles. I know in GNP there are poles or whatever for food in camp. Once i've hit the western border of the park though, i'm not quite sure whether i should be carrying a bear canister or what. I'm used to only carrying it in areas where it's mandatory, but i'm also not used to hiking much in grizzly bear country. My one climb in the Beartooths we just carried the canister, but we were going much less far, so it didn't matter too much to have the extra weight. I'd rather not carry it this time, but i will if safety requires it.

Thoughts?

p.s. I've hung food several times, but i wouldn't especially trust myself to do it right. In recent years, it's been either a canister or (way more often) pick a smart campsite and sleep with my food.

In any area I would not "sleep with my food."
When I camp in areas outside of Glacier National Park I usually hang my food bag. 10 feet high and 3-4 feet from any main tree trunk is the accepted practice. I have also used an Ursack http://www.ursack.com or canister.

I appreciate the response, and i don't want to start the wrong discussion about sleeping with food. But just to steer this thread the direction that'd help me, i do know about hanging distances, ursacks, etc., and i've been out for hundreds of nights. In most areas of the lower 48, bears will not dare bother a human sleeping with their food, and so some recommend that over hanging, which encourages animals to test how well you hang vs. how smart they are.

So i guess what i'm asking is if you're one who does sleep with your food in places, do you do it in Montana west of Glacier NP?

Generally if bears are habituated to human camps/food someplace, it's known and there are regulations in place, or there is specific intel saying "bears cause problems around there". Since it's grizz country, if i can't get any specific intel, i'll just play it safe and lug along a canister. (But for long-distance hiking, many miles and always a late camp, very few hikers hang food.) Regardless i won't be camping where i cook.

Hope that makes my question clearer...thanks for any facts and opinions!

So i guess what i'm asking is if you're one who does sleep with your food in places, do you do it in Montana west of Glacier NP?

Short and long answers are the same. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

I would hang food. Trees should be easy to find and it is the best way. Even if the bear can't get to your stuff in a cannister, having one sniffing around camp is sketchy enough.

I have probably close to 500 nights in grizzly country and I have always hung my food, never carried a cannister and never had a problem. I have seen fresh tracks in the morning, but never a negative encounter. I think being afraid enough to be cautious is the best first step.

markv wrote:I appreciate the response, and i don't want to start the wrong discussion about sleeping with food. But just to steer this thread the direction that'd help me, i do know about hanging distances, ursacks, etc., and i've been out for hundreds of nights. In most areas of the lower 48, bears will not dare bother a human sleeping with their food, and so some recommend that over hanging, which encourages animals to test how well you hang vs. how smart they are.

So i guess what i'm asking is if you're one who does sleep with your food in places, do you do it in Montana west of Glacier NP?

Generally if bears are habituated to human camps/food someplace, it's known and there are regulations in place, or there is specific intel saying "bears cause problems around there". Since it's grizz country, if i can't get any specific intel, i'll just play it safe and lug along a canister. (But for long-distance hiking, many miles and always a late camp, very few hikers hang food.) Regardless i won't be camping where i cook.

Hope that makes my question clearer...thanks for any facts and opinions!

Please ignore the fact that I'm a moderator. Feel free to respond as you wish.

Seriously, are you trolling?

In most areas of the lower 48, bears will not dare bother a human sleeping with their food, and so some recommend that over hanging, which encourages animals to test how well you hang vs. how smart they are

What is your source for this? I have never heard anyone else say that. Black bear or griz, doesn't matter. Maybe if the food is vac-sealed and unopened, but otherwise you have got to be kidding. Plus, if not a bear, it might be a raccoon or a skunk paying a visit, and the latter will ruin your trip in a second.

Please, in Montana and elsewhere, use your canister or hang your food, or just stay out of bear country. Plans like yours get people hurt or killed. And they also get bears killed when they act on their natural instincts and go after food smells. It's especially tragic when a bear has to be killed because of human error.

Sorry if I come across as a dick, but just hang your food. It's easy and it's safe, and you can leave the canister at home. I like using a large dry sack.

I too have never heard of anyone recommending sleeping with their food in bear country. You don't need a canister, a stuff sack will do. And outside of a few hunters I know who are willing to pack a gun, bear spray is the standard protocol, especially if you're hiking solo.

Bob

Hi. I'm grateful for the responses and i'm definitely an extremely experienced backpacker, and not a troll. I've come to learn that the most experienced, local advice is the best place to start. So it sounds like i'll haul out the old rope from a few years ago and hang once again.

But if you think there's something wrong with sleeping with your food in high-use, non-national park, non-grizz country such as the major trails like the PCT, AT, and much of the CDT, you're missing out. Try asking some others who hike these areas on a consistent basis and you'll get the same response as you get from me. Bears or other animals, other than maybe late-summer mice, simply don't go after food in tents. It would be suicidal from their experience. Attack a large, smelly, human thing vs. try to take down an unmanned bag of food in the open? It all depends on the relationship of animals in the area to humans in the area. I know that in high-traffic areas, bears have learned how to take down all but the most extremely-cunning food hangings. These are the same bears that open door knobs or know that if there's a child seat in a car that means there's crumbs on the floor, yet if it's "contested" food they simply pass it up and look for an easier dinner. I can see how in a lower-traffic human area, bears might have a different approach. In grizzly country, i'm not going to mess with it. Usually i care about my food, but in this case i'd rather lose my food than my life (or the bear's life).

I realize that i sound like some fool to you. You, to me, sound like some old army dude saying you have to hike in 5 lb. boots and carry a canvas tarp. We probably have plenty to learn from each other. And seriously, since i don't know the area i'm heading into, and you guys do (i hope!), i'll do it your way. If you hit the PCT or Colorado though, i suggest don't screw things up by stringing your food up. Things have gone much better since the majority of the hikers have stopped that practice. I know literally hundreds of hikers from there, not exaggerating, who sleep with their food, and none have had a single problem outside of national parks with canister regulations due to decades of no hunting causing bears to be emboldened. I"m talking about literally thousands and thousands of hiker-nights with food in the tents, and no problems. It's common sense in those areas, even if it's crazy to your experience.

Sunny Buns wrote:I would NEVER sleep with my food or anything that smells like food. I also don't eat in the tent in bear country. I usually cook and eat 100' or more away from the tent. Good gawd - give yourself every possible advantage - it's not hard.

Haven't hiked in Griz country a lot, but lots in black bear country. I hang the food in a stuff sack. Take a 50 foot stout string, tie a rock to one end, look for a good branch 20 feet or so up in the air, toss the rock over the branch watching carefully that it does not come back and hit YOU! I hang it high enough that a bear isn't likely to even know it's there so I don't worry so much about how far out from the tree it is hanging. Don't hang it right by your tent - hang it 100' away or so - if the bear gets the food too bad for you - just hike out the next day and be thankful you didn't keep it in your tent.

Bear spray is good. Guns are OK too. Never had to use either so far, but I'd be more comfy with the gun at 1 AM when you hear noises outside the tent. But each to his own - pick one and be ready to use it knowing you probably will not need it.

Yeah we're not going to agree on much if you advocate guns vs. bears. Silly if you think you're going to have a bear attack your tent and then you'll be able to shoot it. Also extremely silly to think that you're hanging the food high enough that bears don't know it's there. You don't know bears' sense of smell very well. And seriously, ugh @ "if the bear gets the food too bad for you...just be thankful..." etc. Yeah, that's exactly the attitude that led to areas in which bears are habituated to finding camper food.

I think i'll do ok with hanging if i end up doing it. Last hanging i did was in the Winds in 2007, and we wanted to cache food for 3 days while going further in. It was high up, far from either tree. 3 days later it was still there, so hopefully i can recreate that.

We hung our food in the Winds but not so much for bears as for the marmots. They stole my breakfast bag with my coffee right next to my sleeping friend's head. Losing my coffee was worse than losing my breakfast. The next time we were there we hung our food bag on an overhanging boulder and entertained ourselves watching the marmots trying to get our bag. I've also had mice and raccoons chew through our tent while looking for food. I've never carried a gun for protection from animals. I carry a Canon G12 instead.

We did have a very close encounter with a black bear in camp and our food was right next to us in our packs. The bear sniffed everything and slowly left after we woke up. He came back when we were gone and for some reason he only picked one pack out of four to tear up.

Bob

markv isn't crazy imho. There are times when I might have the food (double sealed in clean, heavy gauge bags) in the tent even in griz country, and actually did just that two weeks ago. Area had low bear density but tons of marmots, and the nearest tree was many miles away. It's just a risk balance--tiny risk of bear coming in tent; virtual certainty that if marmots see a bag on the tundra, the tundra will be a garbage dump the next morning. Ursacks are good, but I find that capacity can be an issue early in a trip.
Chris

I know what i'm an expert on and what i'm not.

What i was asking for, and i clarified in my 2nd post, is specifically information for the region west of Glacier NP. I've only been as far north in MT as the Beartooths. I made my posts long because i thought that context would help people give me the answers i need.

I should know better about how internet conversation goes these days.

I'll repost.