Thwarting Grand Canyon Critters

some of the camps like Cottonwood had metal ammo cans but Rangers removed them because careless hikers would leave them filled w/ trash. your best bet is an ursack, bearvault, or ratsack (being the lightest). The mice are insane… the ravens can open zippers… and then the ul moochers… gotta watch out for the ul moochers.

You're right, the critters are pretty fearless in the Canyon. I've used a gallon paint can before and it works well. It's kind of like a lightweight bear canister.

You can buy unused (clean) gallon paint cans at any hardware store.

Lucky

I used a Ratsack last Sept and it worked wonderfully. At one point when coming back from filling up with water I saw a critter giving it a go and he was not able to get through. You can pick them up at the park general store for $20-30 bucks…

I've hiked most of the Tonto, and never had any problems with mice, etc.

The simplest idea would be to avoid the most popular sites. For instance, instead of camping in the side canyons, dry-camp out on the plateau proper between side canyons. Or, avoid camping in Grapevine or Cottonwood, and instead camp in Lone Tree (one of my favorites, btw).

I store my food in a stuff sack by my head, and cover it with my stinky socks. Just in case.

I've used a heavy nylon bag W/ plastic coated electrical wire (med guage) over limbs in the Paria Canyon, Utah. The wire has a plastic Cool Whip lid just above the bag about 1 ft. to keep critters off of it. I may use two lids a foot apart for my April 15th Grand Canyon backpack. Darn ring-tailed cats are persistent.

Eric