BAY AREA – Anyone have a Bearikade I can take a look at?

I'm in San Jose and have a weekender, but as I recall you can rent them from the National Parks. If you find yourself in the neighborhood of Sequoia NP (say, the Foothill visitor center), they will probably let you look at one. Maybe the Middle Fork trail or some such would be a nice way to try one out.

Megan,

Congrats on your permit for the JMT!

Going to be an amazing trip for you.

I did it back in 2011 over 15 days.

That said….what is your resupply plan?

Knowing how many days of food you will be carrying at any given time would determine how large a canister you may need.

If you are going South Bound from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney, you have a few places you can cache food/re-supply.

Tuolumne Meadows….we left food in a bear box at a car campsite close to the Post Office, so that we only needed 1.5 days of food climbing out of the Valley to the Meadow.

Then you have Reds Meadow, where you can mail yourself a resupply bucket.

Then you can go to either Vermillion Valley Resort or likely Muir Trail Ranch, which is effectively your last easy resupply for the next 110 miles to Mt. Whitney.

Options after MTR are to leave the trail to hike out at some point that I don't recall to resupply or something like having a pack mule meet you on the trail with additional supplies.

For our group, we carried all of our food from MTR to Mt. Whitney.

I was using a Bear Vault and had a tough time fitting 6 days of food in there and ended up cheating by carrying that day's food outside the bear canister.

Because of my experience on the JMT, I later ordered a custom 12" tall Bearikade (it is the same height as my bear vault, but holds more because it is wider in diamter).

The 12" Bearikade gives me 750 cu inches vs.the 10" tall Weekender which provides you 656 cu inches of storage.

http://www.wild-ideas.net/custom-bearikades/

The Bear Vault BV500 provide 700 cu inches.

http://www.bearvault.com/bearvault_details.php

Based on my own experience, I felt having 750 Cu Inches would make it easier to get 7 days of food in the canister.

Curiously, when I called Bearikade, the man who answered said that he already had a "custom made" 12" tall Bearikade sitting on the shelf, ready to ship.

He also mentioned that the 12" tall canister was a commonly requested size.

The Expedition is much larger than the Weekender and might be more than you need.

Also, bear in mind that if you are traveling with others and you have an Expedition, your resupply constraint will be the size/capacity of your hiking buddies if they have a smaller canister than you do.

Anyway, point is that you don't have to be limited to "either/or" the Weekender or the Expedition.

Given how expensive they are, getting a custom cut one is reasonable in cost and easy to do.

If you are interested in checking out mine….I am in the East Bay and could meet you at the Walnut Creek BART station.

Also, I will tell you that I recently acquired this canister and have not taken it out on a trip yet, but I do feel that the volume is going to work for me based on my JMT experience.

Tony

Thank Tony!

Great info. I'm planning on renting one from the company for the JMT bc I used an URSACK for the rest of my hikes. So I'm just trying to figure out which one to get. All your info was SUPER helpful. I need to plan out our itinerary so I know our resupply points. I don't plan on hiking out over Keasarge so it's either all got to fit in the bear can from MTR or we'll get a pack mule, which i would prefer not to do. Definitely need to map out the itinerary so I know what I'm looking at from MTR.

Thanks again!

Megan,

You are welcome….glad I can give back by passing along the suggestions and information.

Over the years, a lot of BPLers have helped me out too.

In terms of resupply & through hiking….being UL and fast is your friend.

The lighter you are and the faster you can COMFORTABLY hike, the less days out on the trial and less food weight on your back for that 2nd half of the trip past MTR.

My suggestion, swing by Vermillion Valley Resort for an overnighter.

Great people, they love through hikers….chance to shower, do laundry, friendly staff/people, and 1st beer is free to through hikers! (Also, you can meet a variety of interesting through hikers….some North Bound PCT hikers, depending on the time of year you go).

MTR was the opposite experience for me and I wish I could have given my resupply business to VVR, but simple fact that MTR has the LOCATION for the best resupply.

MTR was just "get your bucket and get out of here and don't be seen by the paying guest."

Make sure you check out water availability based on the snow pack this year….on the trail, talk to your fellow backpackers traveling North Bound. Sure they will be happy to tell you where the water sources are, so you can keep hydrated and safe.

Good luck!

Tony

You can get a first approximation of how much space you need by using a cardboard box. Take 100 cubic inches as a starting point, so make a cardboard box of 10x10x1 inches, which is 100. See if you can get one entire day's worth of food into that. You might be better, or you might be worse. You will get some number like 80 or 100 or 150 cubic inches needed for each day, then multiply that by the number of days that you need to travel over the longest trail segment without resupply. You will end up with some total number of cubic inches needed, like 700, 800, or 1000. From that, you can judge which size of bear canister to get.

Note that in the Bearikade brand, most of the weight is in the metal end pieces, and there isn't that much additional weight in incrementally larger sizes. It doesn't hurt much to have one that is a little too large, as long as it will fit in your pack.

Besides, the larger it is, the better it works as a camp stool. Multiple use and all that.

–B.G.–

For me, I can get six days of food into the weekender. So, if I carried the first days worth of food outside the bear can, I could go for seven days.

But take into consideration rain days. Last year on the JMT I had two days where I couldn't go anywhere due to heavy rains and not wanting to go over passes during major thunder storms. Since then, I decided I'd always take an extra days worth of food in case I got stuck for a day.

If you want a spreadsheet comparing the Bearikade's different sizes vs volumn and weight PM me. That or if someone could tell me how to insert a spreadsheet I'll post it.

a typical best packing of a bear cannister is 100 cu in/day
I can get mine down to about 80 working hard at it.

I had planned to carry 8 days in cannister from MTR, when I got there I didnt feel like screwing with packing it that tight, and put in 7 days, and carried first ~half days food out.

I arrived at whitney portal with 3 days food left. Pretty much the whole trip, I carried 2 days extra food. It just isnt hard hiking if you have a light pack. Might suck wind on 13000 ft pass, but the 8 mile easy downhill stretch afterwards more than makes up for it.

"That or if someone could tell me how to insert a spreadsheet I'll post it."

With many spreadsheet programs, you can save the sheet as a JPEG image file, then insert that into your posting like any other image.

–B.G.–

Thanks Bob!

There are some real "foodies" out there that can't even get their food packed into 200 cubic inches per day.

I never attempt to store all of my food inside the bear canister except overnight.

–B.G.–

Like Kenneth I get six days of food in a weekender. Bob's right about the minor weight difference sizing up on the canister, but I like to be able to carry my canister lengthwise in my pack, and can just do that with a weekender. The Expedition really takes up space!

I've had all food for 9 days for two people (one a teenager) in a pair of bearikades, one each size. Also have done 5 days 4 nights for 2 people in the weekender just barely. So I would say if I was packing for just me I could do 9 days in the weekender and 12 in the expedition.