Odor-proof Backpack

Noble idea, but it ain't happening. They will smell you and everything you have handled. I'll bet that bears can smell old tarp odor and know it equals food. You need it locked away where Yogi can't get it.

I want electric bear bags. A nice high Kv zap on a big nose should give a strong negative reinforcement. The same for raccoons and rodents. I would LOVE to see a video of a raccoon getting a good jolt when messing with a food sack.

"I want electric bear bags."

You can have one in June. http://www.rutalocura.com/palisade.html

I'm with Dale. The idea sounds great on paper, but there is very little chance you could get a working prototype in real life.

All the animals that will be trying to eat your food have a very keen sense of smell. It doesn't matter if it's a mouse or a bear, they will all blow us out of the water in terms of olfactory abilities for finding food. It's how they make a living, so you better believe it's a fine tuned sense of theirs.

We rely heavily on vision and hearing, and in consequence we have some of the best eyes and ears in the animal kingdom (for our purposes, at least). The same principle holds true for these forest critters and their sense of smell.

How would you "odor-proof" a bag with all its seams and attachments points? How would you test it to verify that it is in fact odor-proof?

I think the best that we're ever going to do is to simply keep wild animals from physically being able to get to our food. They are almost certainly always going to be able to smell it though.

Building a better (i.e. lighter) bite-proof bag would probably be a better use for your time and energy than trying to build an odor-proof pack.

Just my two cents.

> You can have one in June. http://www.rutalocura.com/palisade.html

What do you suppose the ratio of bear zaps -to- unintentional human zaps will be?

"What do you suppose the ratio of bear zaps -to- unintentional human zaps will be?"

Depends on how much alcohol is involved….

I don't know about an odor proof pack, but LiteTrail makes pack liners out of the same material as their odor proof bags. I got some to bump my order up to the minimum, and I figure an extra bit of protection might keep rodents from ripping my bag apart in search of a rogue peanut.

http://litetrail.com/products/litetrail-nylobarrier-pack-liner

The bear's reaction in the video is exactly what I expected. After a few experiences like that, I think a bear would give up on food containers. If you made them with a distinctive color pattern, they would quickly learn to leave them alone. If you could associate a distinctive yet pleasant odor (for the hiker's benefit) with the negative reinforcement, they may not even get close to your camp.

My idea is to have a very light flexible bag so you avoid the whole bear canister packing debacle.

Imagine something like the Pacsafe security net with 5Kv hooked to it [evil grin]

As to human contact, it begs for a remote control. It would keep two-legged snakes out of your gear. Can you image the whoop at 2AM?

Makes sense to me – the issue is that the bear / animal will still pick up the smell because even though the inside of the bag is odor proof at some point we will handle our food and then touch the outside of the bag which would then be enough for mr. yogi bear to detect and come looking. Is that right?

I like the electric shock idea haha! would love to get my handle on the upcoming bear canister.

So if not food, then what about dirty and smelly clothes? Would an odorproof backpack be of interest then? How do you store your soiled clothes now?

Darius,
Pretty much everyone around here (including myself) uses only one set of clothes while backpacking, so if they get dirty, well, you're still wearing them!

I keep my extra layers in a waterproof stuff sack in my pack. I always bring a few plastic grocery bags as well to further organize my clothes (the plastic bags weight next to nothing). If I have some article of clothing that is really rank, and I don't have enough time or water to clean it, then I'll just sequester it into one of the plastic grocery bags. Seems to work well for me.

Darius, even if you have an odor proof backpack the odors could still get into your sleeping bag all of your packed clothing making it useless.

An odor proof backpack would need to have some kind of thick plastic liner, taped seams, and an air tight roll top closure… doesn't make sense at all.

They have already solved this issue with odor proof food bags. Check out the opsak.

Where do you live and what kind of bears are you dealing with? Black bears don't smell food on your clothes and run into camp and maul you. 99.9% of the time they take off running when they see you unless it's a well used camp, in that case they watch you wait for you to leave your food unattended.
If you are dealing with grizzlies then it's different and there is more risk.

There is no such thing as soiled clothes in backpacking. There are hiking clothes and clean sleeping clothes, but no soiled clothes.

Derek and Justin, thanks for the clarification. Clearly, I don't have much experience hiking hence why my questions might seem a bit far fetched.

Derek – Agreed. It makes sense that you can just use a plastic bag to store anything dirty. The plastic bag is lightweight and cheep.

Justin – You're right – plastic liner, taped seams, air tight roll doesn't make any sense at all for a backpack. I've heard and read some reviews of Opsak it seems like a good solution.

Haha I'm actually not close to any bears at the moment. Black bears would be the closes kind of bear that I would encounter. After reading through the requirement of having to haul around a bear canister, I figured why not instead just have an odor proof backpack to forgo the canister. Isn't carrying around a 5 pound bulky bear canister painful?

Got it! Only hiking clothes and clean clothes. :-)

I'm quite there's no such thing as an odor proof anything…otherwise drug smugglers would be all over it and no one would ever get caught.

If dogs, even highly trained ones, can smell a trace of weed or 10kilos of heroin I'm quite sure a bear can smell our nasty selves and the food we are carrying.

nm, redundant post.

I'm in the same camp. This article is interesting: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/odor_proof_bags_study.html …. I've heard others discount it, but seemed legit when I read it originally … it's been a while.

Ultimately, I"m not going to gamble by not hanging or putting food in a can where required anyways, so even if I were to use an Opsak, that's it would be a small part of a bigger strategy.

I have some left over Opsaks and I'm going to use them just to get rid of them …. I don't trust them, but again, shouldn't really matter since I'm either hanging or using a can anyways ….even if they did work, I think cross contamination of smell is just too great …. if a dog can track a person's odor through a field for miles and miles hours after the fact … there's a good chance animals can smell the outside of an opsak that has come in contact with my hands, pack and other materials that have touched food, toothpaste and everything else we have that gives off a bear friendly scent. Even if opsaks work, I would guess that outside contamination is their downfall.

I loved that article…

I do use Opsacks…but only to keep the smell of hot n spicy cheez-its away from ME.

With regard to electrified bear bags; what if it rains? Wouldn't the rain cause it to go "on" very often, wearing down the battery? Or do bears not look for food in the rain?

Steve