Backpacking in Grizzly Country

[Kevin L]

You can call your state wildlife dept, or the state you plan to be in.  They generally have up to date info on bears in thier jusidiction.

[Brad W]

@AK Granola didn’t say formal expertise. Perhaps more experience is better phrasing then?

 

[Brad W]

@Kevin L,  good idea. Thanks.

[Mark Wetherington]

“Try your local library.”

As the director of a public library and an avid backpacker, this comment made my day : )

Public lands and public libraries are two of the greatest treasures, in my opinion. Sorry for the thread drift!

[Herman]

For what it’s worth from an experience stand point…I’ve cooked, eaten, and slept in the same clothing in brown/black bear country here in Alaska for 19 years and haven’t had any problems. That includes with my kids, who aren’t super pro-active in minimizing risk. Food is normally in bear bags about 100 yds away, sometimes less depending on where I can tie them to.

[AK Granola]

I have also hiked, camped and backpacked in Alaska for the last 30 years, and have fortunately had only benign encounters with bears, none involving food. My take is that bears have really good noses, and can tell if you cooked a while ago and have only a minor scent on your clothes, and smell the difference between that and a snickers under your pillow. That said, I don’t fish and if I did I’d probably change those clothes out before cozying up in my sleeping bag. I also don’t cook bacon when I backpack. I keep a clean camp, use a bear canister or Ursack (mostly the canister these days), and cook away from my sleeping area. As with everywhere else, once bears get human food, they tend to be problematic so the goal is prevention. Trying to educate outsiders who think they know best is one of my regular summer sports activities. I suppose they think we are all dumb hicks and they just google their questions instead of listening to locals (even after asking for advice).

There are bears in Alaska who occasionally just attack and eat people unprovoked and without “cause.” They’re rare, thankfully.

[Bob L]

Hey Now.  Really helpful to hear from those with experience. Thanks AK and Herman. I’m pretty sure I know the experts suggest 3 sets of clothes, 100 yard LNT triangle, and bear can.  Im happy to do that and I want to know something from those with experience.  And please keep the summer education sessions going! I do the same on trial when I can.

[Luke Schmidt]

My thoughts on extra clothes

• I like to keep my expensive down clean. So I change into clean long underwear bottoms and wear my puffy to bed. Problem solved whether I’m in grizzly  country or not.
• I will go out on a limb and guess the rules are based on common sense and general knowledge but not an exclusively experimented process.  In other words if your triangle is 90 yards you probably aren’t in 10% more danger.

When I had a synthetic quilt I dud NOT have clean clothes. I just felt the food oder there was so small compared to my body funk and the smell of my stashed food 100 yards away that it didn’t worry me.

[Author]

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