Hanging food above treeline

[John Peterson]

I'm heading to the Winds for the first time next week. I've read several people advocate hanging their food off of a cliff or big rocks. Anyone that has done this have a picture? My biggest question about it is how do you tie it off so that animals don't chew through the cord and therefore drop the bag?

[Daniel Cox]

An alternative to hanging is to double-up on the odorproof sacks, put that in a stuff sack and bury the whole thing in rocks or branches.

That's what I do above treeline. Food into an OpSak, then into a NyloFume pack liner, then a stuff sack and under a pile of debris. If an animal can find and get into that in 7-odd hours, then they deserve it.

[John Peterson]

Probably would take a bear a few seconds to move all of the debris.

[Mark Ries]

This is just my take so take it at that. I have read that bears do not like climbing rock so use that to your advantage, find something that you would not want to climb if you didnt have fingers and thumbs. Bears are the only animal out there (the winds) with any problem solving skills to speak of. Marmots most likely would not be smart enough to chew a rope to intentionally drop a food bag so as long as the rope did not taste of salt or food you should be good here. Also the bears here are not yosemite graduates so you really dont need to be that crafty. Do the best you can in any given situation. This year I am going to pack an extra ounce and bring along 10' of 1/16" steel cable with loops on each end which should simplify hanging off rock ledges. I have at times hung a bear bag over an edge and then used another rope to pull it away from the wall to keep the little varmits off.

[John Peterson]

Are you typing a loop of rope around rock features to suspend it?

[Mark Ries]

Yes. And though I am not a rock climber some of their tools, cams etc. would come in handy for this. Also you can tie around smaller rocks and wedge in cracks and crevises. The more I think about this my cable might go up to 15-20 ft. I have always in the past brought 2 pieces of 50 -70 ft cord, they keep getting shorter. Ok now im off to get some new bear bagging cord.

[Link .]

http://ryanjordan.com/blog/2010/08/cliffhanging-bear-bagging-above-treeline/

[Daniel Cox]

"Probably would take a bear a few seconds to move all of the debris."

Very true. I'm going with the assurance that a double layer odorproof barrier and my smelly a$$ is going to make my food non-existent to bears, cats and canines, and the rocks protect it from anything small enough to go unnoticed near my camp.

Trust me. Not even hanging food impossibly high can stop a determined bear. I JUST helped a friend replace a corn auto feeder for deer that was physically torn from the 5/8" steel cable stringing it between two trees. The trees were about 30 feet apart and the cable was 25 feet off the ground. I helped him hang it the first time and our 30' extension ladder barely reached the cross cable to get the feeder up.

Last week we found the crumpled 50 gal drum on the ground, torn open and virtually empty. Some bear got a nice corn dinner. A silnylon sack hung from a cliff isn't gonna deter a hungry bear either.

[Mark Ries]

Ok so Im trying to imagine the bear tight rope walking the 5/8" steel cable for 15' or maybe hanging underneith it going paw over paw jeez I guess there is no hope at all when camping in bear country

[Daniel Cox]

Our best 'CSI:Rosita' scene reconstruction says it climbed the tree and yanked on the cable until the clevises failed. Then he worked on the drum when on the ground, tearing off the now-deformed ring retainer on the lid.

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